Fully Grown

Economist Dietrich Vollrath argues that the slowdown in GDP growth seen in the US and elsewhere is a sign of economic success rather than failure. The economy, he says, already supplies so much of the stuff of modern life that people have turned to forms of production and consumption that raise well-being without adding to GDP. He examines trends such as a falling ratio of workers to population, the move from goods to services, and a decline in geographic mobility, showing how each could be read as success even though it acts as a brake on growth. He also maps what growth measurement can and cannot tell us. Vollrath co-wrote a leading undergraduate textbook.

It was one of the best non-fiction books of 2020 on Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution list.