I know this is just accounting inflation, but from a collectors stand point...if you had $1.50 from that era, it would be worth waaaaaay more than $37.70 :)
Interestingly, the period after 1945 coincides with the explosive growth in computing performance, according to William Nordhaus of Yale University in a 2002 study entitled The Progress of Computing [1].
Nordhaus documents computer performance improvements on the order of 1 trillon to 5 trillion times "...in constant dollars or in terms of labor units since 1900." During that period, Nordhaus notes that "...there were relatively small improvements in efficiency (perhaps a factor of ten) in the century before World War II. Around World War II, however, there was a substantial acceleration in productivity, and the growth in computer power from 1940 to 2002 has averaged close to 50 percent per year."
Automation really picked up in industry in the period since 1970, which has seen relatively stagnant wages for most of the working population.
quackerhacker|12 years ago
rangibaby|12 years ago
ChristianMarks|12 years ago
Nordhaus documents computer performance improvements on the order of 1 trillon to 5 trillion times "...in constant dollars or in terms of labor units since 1900." During that period, Nordhaus notes that "...there were relatively small improvements in efficiency (perhaps a factor of ten) in the century before World War II. Around World War II, however, there was a substantial acceleration in productivity, and the growth in computer power from 1940 to 2002 has averaged close to 50 percent per year."
Automation really picked up in industry in the period since 1970, which has seen relatively stagnant wages for most of the working population.
[1] http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/prog_030402_all.pdf
dsjoerg|12 years ago