Dietrich Vollrath
Economist at the University of Houston; wrote Fully Grown, on why a slow-growing economy is a sign of success, and blogs at Growth Economics.
Dietrich Vollrath did not write this page. What is this?
It collects the places they publish and what they have said there, each linked to the source. They have no account here. Is this you? Claim it, correct it, or ask us to remove it from ppll.
Where they publish
Blog Growth Economics His blog on economic growth and productivity. Has a feed.
Recent
- Moving to Substack 14 Jun 2023 Hi all, this is a pointer to direct you over to Substack. I’m moving the Econ Growth Blog over there, with the hopes of creating a little more interaction around it, the way Twitter used to function. The first post is h…
- Productivity growth and the European slowdown 13 Jun 2023 Well, better late than never, I guess? About six months ago I started playing around with some posts on the slowdown in European economic growth. The first did some basic accounting to establish the role of physical cap…
- The Slowdown in Europe via Human Capital 9 Jan 2023 This is the second part of a deep(ish) dive into the growth slowdown in Europe. The first installment looked at the timing and basics of the slowdown. This post is going to dig into the role of human capital. Hit the re…
Show 12 more
- Fully Grown - European Vacation! 29 Dec 2022 Before jumping into the proper post, some housekeeping. Thanks to a combination of Twitter’s situation and not missing Twitter while I took a hiatus this year, I really have no stake in staying over there. My account is…
- Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" 11 Oct 2022 Brad Delong recently published his long-gestating economic history of the long 20th century, Slouching Towards Utopia. If you are reading this blog, you are almost certainly aware of that, and I would guess the probabil…
- Implications of additive growth 9 Aug 2022 Well, after a massive break from most social media and this blog, I am stretching my neck back out of the shell. This first post back is very much a “teaching post”, in that it’s a rough draft of how I might talk about…
- The return to public capital spending 18 May 2021 In the time-honored tradition of the Growth Economics Blog, I am coming into a discussion about four weeks late. In this case it has to do with the value of spending on “infrastructure” or public capital, which came up…
- How sensitive is GDP to capital? 28 Apr 2021 This is an odd post because it is an advertisement for a new paper that is …. in an advanced draft state? “Finished” is wrong because I’m about to embark on the roller-coaster that is submission and publication. But the…
- Pandemic relief and potential GDP (plus CBO methodology appendices!) 24 Mar 2021 The figure below is from the Hamilton Project but you could have found something similar in a lot of evaluations of the relief bill. It compares the projected path of GDP with the relief bill to the CBO projection of po…
- Judge me by my TFP, do you? 1 Feb 2021 I told you in the last post that I’m agnostic about the relationship of TFP and innovation. That was part of an on-going debate, mainly with Eli Dourado. I want to pause at the outset to say that this debate is great. I…
- TFP Agnosticism 29 Jan 2021 In some recent Twittering, Eli Dourado pointed to the “Gordon/Vollrath” view that stagnation is normal, healthy, and a sign of success. I guess it is kind of cool that I have a notable view, and being associated in some…
- The 1965 shift in growth 8 Jan 2021 Well, insurrection in the nation’s literal Capitol was not the context I expected for my next blog entry. But with lots of nervous energy and few useful outlets for it (I, alas, am not authorized to arrest Ted Cruz) I f…
- When did productivity growth slow down? 7 Dec 2020 A few weeks ago I participated in a discourse on Pairagraph with Eli Dourado of the Center for Growth and Opportunity. The prompt was “Economic growth is stagnating, but there’s more to the story.” I argued that one sho…
- The Silicon and Industrial Revolutions 13 Aug 2020 You can see this post as a way of thinking about anything other than …. whatever real life has going on right now. And a warning that I posted this without a real close edit, because otherwise it would be another month…
- Economic impacts of the coronavirus - part 3/n(?) 2 Apr 2020 If you’re wondering what I’m attempting to do in these posts, then join the club. I’m just sort of grasping around for a way of thinking about the aggregate impacts of the shutdowns that takes into account the fact that…
Link verified 20 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 5 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Sustained growth in living standards required productivity to accelerate and population growth to fall at the same time.
It was an acceleration in productivity combined with a decline in population growth that put us on a slow trudge towards utopia.
Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" Said 11 Oct 2022
Before about 1870 every burst of productivity growth was eaten by a burst of population growth, leaving living standards where they were.
Prior to this inflection point, productivity growth had increased before, but every time had induced a response of higher population growth rates, eroding any gains in per-person living standards.
Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" Said 11 Oct 2022
What broke the Malthusian trap was that productivity growth raised the price of bringing a child to adulthood.
The key change is that productivity growth, starting around 1870, reached down and profoundly raised the price of bringing a child to adulthood.
Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" Said 11 Oct 2022
Show 2 more
The research lab, the corporation and globalisation could not have produced sustained growth without the fall in fertility beside them.
Without this anti-Malthusian response the research lab, corporation, and globalization cannot provide sustained growth.
Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" Said 11 Oct 2022
The fall in fertility deserves equal billing with the research lab, the corporation and globalisation in the story of modern growth.
What I’m nitpicking here is that this decline in fertility deserves equal billing with the research lab, corporation, and globalization.
Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" Said 11 Oct 2022
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
14 June 2023
13 June 2023
9 January 2023
29 December 2022
11 October 2022
From one piece Review of DeLong's "Slouching Towards Utopia" 5 beliefs · growthecon.com
-
Their words
What I’m nitpicking here is that this decline in fertility deserves equal billing with the research lab, corporation, and globalization.
-
Their words
Without this anti-Malthusian response the research lab, corporation, and globalization cannot provide sustained growth.
-
korrents.com
What broke the Malthusian trap was that productivity growth raised the price of bringing a child to adulthood.Their words
The key change is that productivity growth, starting around 1870, reached down and profoundly raised the price of bringing a child to adulthood.
+ 2 more
-
Their words
Prior to this inflection point, productivity growth had increased before, but every time had induced a response of higher population growth rates, eroding any gains in per-person living standards.
-
Their words
It was an acceleration in productivity combined with a decline in population growth that put us on a slow trudge towards utopia.
9 August 2022
18 May 2021
28 April 2021
24 March 2021
1 February 2021
29 January 2021
8 January 2021
7 December 2020
13 August 2020
2 April 2020
Nothing matches.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.