Projecting World Economic Growth: The Contribution of Information Technology

Abstract

This paper introduces a new framework for projecting potential world economic growth, taking into account the critical contribution of information and technology. We apply this framework to project the potential growth of labor productivity, GDP, and per capita GDP over the ten-year period 2006-2016 for 122 economies. Relative to historical growth for the period 1996-2006, our base-case projections are slightly higher for productivity growth, but lower for growth of GDP and GDP per capita. By comparison with the World Bank forecasts, our projections are less optimistic for all groups of economies except for Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Our projections are also below the Goldman Sachs forecasts for all economies except for the U.S.