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This study examines the persistent slowdown of the U.S. economy since 2007 and argues that it represents a secular stagnation: a structural form of slowdown growth, rather than a cyclical weakness. Despite unprecedented monetary expansion and near-zero interest rates from 2008 to 2022, economic growth failed to return to norms, revealing the limits of conventional policy tools. Using annual growth data from 1949 to 2025, the study employs ANOVA-type models and binary-variable segmentation to identify structural breaks in growth behavior. We distinguish six homogeneous business-cycle intervals and three long-run growth phases, with long-term growth averages of 4%, 3%, and 2%, respectively. One important conclusion is that the decline of growth potential has been a long-run process undeterred by the excessive use of monetary and fiscal tools. This resonates with the Tinbergen Rule that discourages the use of short-run policies to treat long-run economic problems. We refined the concept of secular stagnation and defined it as a long-run structural phenomenon driven by recent socio-economic conditions including slower productivity growth, chronic investment shortfalls, diminishing returns from digital technology, etc. The ongoing stagnation is unlikely to reverse without significant policy reorientation; it needs renewed scholarly and policy attention and requires long-term structural solutions.

Informed by social resources theory, we provide an explanation for how political skill enables employees' access to social resources, notably expressive network resources and developmental feedback granted by supervisors, thereby enhancing their potential for career growth. Employees can further leverage the attained resources to maximize their chances for career growth by exercising ingratiation toward their supervisors. Data from 399 independently matched subordinate-supervisor dyads in Japan partially support our predictions. While supervisor-focused expressive network resources and supervisor developmental feedback account for mediating mechanisms through which political skill could predict career growth potential, the use of ingratiation to further leverage these social resources is rather deemed insignificant. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

From a biomechanical perspective, the completion of seed (and fruit) germination depends on the balance of two opposing forces: the growth potential of the embryonic axis (radicle–hypocotyl growth zone) and the restraint of the seed-covering layers (endosperm, testa, and pericarp). The diverse seed tissues are composite materials which differ in their dynamic properties based on their distinct cell wall composition and water uptake capacities. The biomechanics of embryo cell growth during seed germination depend on irreversible cell wall loosening followed by water uptake due to the decreasing turgor, and this leads to embryo elongation and eventually radicle emergence. Endosperm weakening as a prerequisite for radicle emergence is a widespread phenomenon among angiosperms. Research into the biochemistry and biomechanics of endosperm weakening has demonstrated that the reduction in puncture force of a seed’s micropylar endosperm is environmentally and hormonally regulated and involves tissue-specific expression of cell wall remodelling proteins such as expansins, diverse hydrolases, and the production of directly acting apoplastic reactive oxygen. The endosperm-weakening biomechanics and its underlying cell wall biochemistry differ between the micropylar (ME) and chalazal (CE) endosperm domains. In the ME, they involve cell wall loosening, cell separation, and programmed cell death to provide decreased and localized ME tissue resistance, autolysis, and finally the formation of an ME hole required for radicle emergence. Future work will further unravel the molecular mechanisms, environmental regulation, and evolution of the diverse biomechanical cell wall changes underpinning the control of germination by endosperm weakening.

Secular stagnation on the supply side takes the form of a slow 1.6 percent annual growth rate of US potential real GDP, roughly half the 3.1 percent annual growth rate of actual real GDP realized from 1972 to 2004. This slowdown stems from a sharp decline in the growth rate of aggregate hours of work and of output per hour. This paper attributes the productivity growth decline to diminishing returns in the digital revolution that had its peak effect business hardware, software, and best practices in the late 1990s but has resulted in little change in those methods over the past decade.

Background: The death of a child of any age can be traumatic and can leave bereaved parents experiencing negative psychological outcomes. Recent research has shown the potential utility for understanding more about the development of post-traumatic growth following bereavement. Objective: This paper sought to identify the aspects of post-traumatic growth experienced by bereaved parents and the factors that may be involved in facilitating or preventing post-traumatic growth. Methods: A systematic search of peer-reviewed articles with a primary focus on positive personal growth in bereaved parents was conducted. Thirteen articles met the inclusion criteria, and were analysed and synthesized according to common and divergent themes. Results: Bereaved parents were able to experience elements of growth proposed by the post-traumatic growth model (changes in self-perception, relationships, new possibilities, appreciation of life and existential views). The papers also indicated that (1) mothers appeared to experience more growth than fathers, (2) cultural variation may impact on some participants' experience of growth, and (3) participants were able to identify growth only once some time had passed. Potential facilitators of post-traumatic growth involved making meaning, keeping ongoing bonds with the child, being with bereaved families, and family and personal characteristics. Social networks were identified as having the potential to be either a facilitator or a barrier to growth. Conclusions: In addition to experiencing grief, bereaved parents may experience aspects of post-traumatic growth, and a variety of factors have been identified as potential facilitators and barriers of these changes. The findings may have implications for support services (e.g. expert-by-experience services).

This paper shows that employment in cohorts of US firms is strongly influenced by aggregate conditions at the time of their entry. Employment fluctuations of startups are procyclical, they persist into later years, and cohort-level employment variations are largely driven by differences in firm size, rather than the number of firms. An estimated general equilibrium firm dynamics model reveals that aggregate conditions at birth, rather than post-entry choices, drive the majority of cohort-level employment variation by affecting the share of startups with high growth potential. In the aggregate, changes in startup conditions result in large, slow-moving fluctuations in employment.

As a criterion of a good firm, a lucrative and growing business has been said to be important. Recently, however, high profitability and high growth potential are insufficient for the criteria, because social influences exerted by recent firms have been extremely significant. In this paper, high social relationship is added to the list of the criteria. Empirical corporate social performance versus corporate financial performance (CSP-CFP) relationship studies that consider social relationship are very limited in Japan, and there are no definite conclusions for the studies in the world, because of scant data and the inappropriate methods, especially for supporting linear hypothesis which these studies are based on. In this paper, the CSP-CFP relationship is analyzed by an artificial neural networks model, which can deal with a non-linear relationship, using 10-year follow-up survey data.

High-growth firms are seen as vital for economic growth. It is important for policy and theory to consider the barriers faced by firms achieving high growth and those with the potential to do so. This article uses data for 4,858 UK SMEs to investigate the obstacles perceived by two sets of firms: (1) firms in periods of high growth and (2) potential high-growth firms, which are observationally similar but are not achieving high growth. The results suggest high-growth firms perceive problems in six areas: recruitment, skill shortages, obtaining finance, cash flow, management skills and finding suitable premises. Potential high-growth firms feel held back by the economy, obtaining finance, cash flow and their management skills, but are less likely to perceive regulation is a problem. The results have implications for theory on high-growth firms and policies focussed at them.

This article connects two strands of the literature on social trust by directly estimating the effects of trust on growth through a set of potential transmission mechanisms. It does so by modeling the process using a 3SLS estimator on a sample of 85 countries for which a full data set is available. The results indicate that trust affects schooling and the rule of law directly, thereby raising economic growth rates. The article closes with a short discussion of the relevance of the findings.

Studies on the impact of technological innovation on growth have been largely mute on the role of new firm formation. Using cross-sectional data on the 37 countries participating in GEM 2002, this paper uses an augmented Cobb-Douglas production to explore firm formation and technological innovation as separate determinants of growth. One area of interest is the contrast between different types of entrepreneurial activities as measured using GEM Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rates - high growth potential TEA, necessity TEA, opportunity TEA and overall TEA. Of the four types of entrepreneurship, only high growth potential entrepreneurship is found to have a significant impact on economic growth. This finding is consistent with extant findings in the literature that it is fast growing new firms, not new firms in general, that accounted for most of the new job creation by small and medium enterprises in advanced countries.