Sources of the Ongoing U.S. Recovery

ECONOMIC GROWTH in the United States since 1995 has been characterized as containing several unique periods: the information technology (IT) in vestment boom in 1995–2000, the period of jobless growth over 2000–2005, and the Great Recession and Recovery period that began around 2007 and contin ues through today.1 At the same time, ongoing struc tural trends that predate these periods have continued and remain a focal point for both economists and poli cymakers: increasing globalization of the marketplace, the ongoing spread of information and communica tions technology, and the continued effect of the skills gap on the U.S. labor market. The ongoing changes to the U.S. economy have re inforced the need for an up-to-date decomposition of gross domestic product (GDP) to the industry-level sources of growth. This decomposition is important not only for analyzing historical growth and identify ing industry contributions but also for evaluating the prospects for growth as the economy continues to re cover from the financial crisis. For example, Jorgenson, Ho, and Samuels (2014) argue that due to IT, it is im portant to consider industry-specific sources of growth and to incorporate industry-specific analysis into ag gregate projections of labor productivity and GDP growth. In this Research Spotlight, we present a new indus try-level data set for 1998–2012 that is useful for ana lyzing the underlying trends in aggregate economi