A Retrospective Look at the U.S. Productivity Growth Resurgence

It is now widely recognized that information technology (IT) was critical to the dramatic acceleration of U.S. labor productivity growth in the mid-1990s. This paper traces the evolution of productivity estimates to document how and when this perception emerged. Early studies concluded that IT was relatively unimportant. It was only after the massive IT investment boom of the late 1990s that this investment and underlying productivity increases in the IT-producing sectors were identified as important sources of growth. Although IT has diminished in significance since the dot-com crash of 2000, we project that private sector productivity growth will average around 2.5 percent per year for the next decade, a pace that is only moderately below the average for the 1995-2005 period

Human development: selected readings

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Trajectories of Retirement in Later Life: A Group-Based Modeling Approach

Wang (2013) noted a paucity of retirement research that utilized longitudinal study designs. Following Tang and Burr\u27s (2015) retirement research, this study analyzed retirement trajectories using a combination of latent class analysis and group-based trajectory modeling. This study identified the number and types of retirement trajectories using multiple indicators of labor force participation and retirement. Using the Health and Retirement Study data (1998-2004), this study found at baseline that four latent classes (not retired, retired, partially retired, homemakers) produced an optimal fit to the data. Thereafter, group-based trajectory modeling showed two divergent retirement trajectories over the remaining time periods. Chi-square tests were applied to the baseline classes to test for differences by gender or race. Although chi-square tests showed differences in retirement status by gender and race, once controls were added for age, health, marital status and education, the race and gender differences in retirement status were no longer statistically significant. Consistent with the research literature, the following covariates were associated with a greater likelihood of transitioning to retirement: increasing age, poor health, spousal influence, and less education. Further retirement research using the novel methodologies of latent class analysis and group-based trajectory modeling is warranted

Strengthening argumentation in medical explanations by text planning revision

Explanations are an important by-product of medical decisionsupport activities, as they have proved to favour compliance and correct treatment performance. To achieve this purpose, these texts should have a strong argumentation content and should adapt to emotional, as well as to rational attitudes of the Addressee. This paper describes how Rhetorical Sentence Planning can contribute to this aim: the rulebased plan discourse revision is introduced between Text Planning and Linguistic Realization, and exploits knowledge about the user personality and emotions and about the potential impact of domain items on user compliance and memory recall. The proposed approach originates from analytical and empirical evaluation studies of computer generated explanation texts in the domain of drug prescription. This work was partially supported by a British-Italian Collaboration in Research and Higher Education Project, which involved the Universities of Reading and of Bari, in 1996