The Industrial Revolution facilitated the extensive process of economic growth, that economists often refer to as modern economic growth. We can measure productivity, the value of what is produced per worker, or per hour worked, as the level of GDP per worker or GDP per hour.

Since the early nineteenth century, there has been a spectacular process of long-run economic growth during which the world’s leading economies—mostly those in Western Europe and North America—expanded GDP per capita… In the last half-century, countries like Japan, South Korea, and China have shown the potential to catch up.

Industrial Revolution — the widespread use of power-driven machinery and the economic and social changes that occurred in the first half of the 1800s. value of what — produced per worker, or per hour worked, as the level of GDP per worker or GDP per hour. modern economic growth — the period of rapid economic growth from 1870 onward. labor productivity — the value of what is produced per worker, or per hour worked (sometimes called worker productivity).