Productivity II: Electrotechnology to the rescue

Productivity is a complex measure. The factors affecting it involve substitutions and equivalents. For example, Texas Instruments' Patrick Haggerty has postulated that a “unit” of electronics (the “active element group”) can replace a given amount of energy that would otherwise be required in specific manufacturing operations. And, as Associate Editor Kaplan states in the introduction to his article, every fluctuation in availability and price of energy affects both the world economy and national productivity.