By Professor Robert J. Gordon

Is US economic growth over? Faltering innovation confronts the six

Global growth is slowing ? especially in advanced-technology economies. This column argues that regardless of cyclical trends, long term economic growth may grind to a halt. Two and a half centuries of rising per-capita incomes could well turn out to be a unique episode in human history.

It is time to raise basic questions about the process of economic growth, especially the assumption ? nearly universal since Solow's seminal contributions of the 1950s (Solow 1953) ? that economic growth is a continuous process that will persist forever.