Thanks, Matt. Cowen makes good points, overlapping with some of mine. On the Baumol-Bowen cost disease (which I should have mentioned although I didn’t want to add too much to my 1998 essay and will write more on the topic), I wonder how much of the “disease” would exist in a largely unregulated economy. Of course, we don’t have that and it doesn’t look likely any time soon.
I’m less persuaded by Cowen’s sixth point. As Brad DeLong and others have shown, economies can and have transitioned to drastically faster rates of growth in the past – much more than would be the case from an increase of 0.5% per year. Perhaps Cowen doesn’t dispute that but expects the transition to take decades.
Very interesting take.
Exceptional insights.
Speaking of economists, have you read
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/02/why-i-think-ai-take-off-is-relatively-slow.html
Thanks, Matt. Cowen makes good points, overlapping with some of mine. On the Baumol-Bowen cost disease (which I should have mentioned although I didn’t want to add too much to my 1998 essay and will write more on the topic), I wonder how much of the “disease” would exist in a largely unregulated economy. Of course, we don’t have that and it doesn’t look likely any time soon.
I’m less persuaded by Cowen’s sixth point. As Brad DeLong and others have shown, economies can and have transitioned to drastically faster rates of growth in the past – much more than would be the case from an increase of 0.5% per year. Perhaps Cowen doesn’t dispute that but expects the transition to take decades.