One of the true conundrums in the macroeconomic world is the continuing drop in total global productivity over the last few decades, in spite of the growing use of computers, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Theoretically, productivity should have gone up.

Professor and Nobel laureate Robert Gordon and others have speculated the GDP growth is going to decline to less than 1%, and they have all sorts of maps to back up their claim. I’ve taken issue with their reasoning, but they makes great points.

And then we come to today’s Outside the Box. Matthew Tracey and Joachim Fels ask the intriguing question “Productivity: A Surprise Upside Risk to the Global Economy?” Using microeconomic rather than macroeconomic analysis, they lay out a path by which they think it might be possible for productivity to actually rise over the coming decade. While that would be a pleasant surprise, they also include one scenario in which that productivity growth actually has a negative social impact.