Recession=Innovation Deficit

This is interesting.

It is not really news that a focus on the source of job losses is a waste of attention, but I do not recall it being illustrated quite as well as in the labour market statistics quoted by David Leonhardt in this New York Times article. What the data over 14 years appear to show is that what happens in a slow-down is not that more jobs are lost but that less jobs are created.

Hat-tip:The Economist's "Free Exchange" online-column.