Are Today's Technology Giants Destined to Remain At the Top?

“New data,” writes Christopher Mims of The Wall Street Journal, “suggests that the secret of the success of the Amazons, Googles and Facebooks of the world — not to mention the Walmarts, CVSes and UPSes before them — is how much they invest in their own technology.” This new analysis from James Bessen of Boston University shows a big productivity divergence between the top 5 percent of manufacturing and service firms and everyone else. And it tends to reinforce the thesis Michael Mandel and I have offered that the “information gap” is key to the productivity slowdown.