When the moment is right

The earliest mention of "Total Factor Productivity" I find on this blog occurs in Suddenly remembered where I caught Noah considering the relation between TFP and unemployment. I wrote:

"TFP" being "Total Factor Productivity" which doesn't matter at the moment.

I think that's funny because it was three years ago, almost to the day. And now, finally, I'm looking at TFP. The moment is right, I guess.

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I find the phrase Total Factor Productivity a few times after that, but nothing catches my eye (at the moment) until 26 March 2014: The relation between productivity and growth. In that post I quoted Willem Van Zandweghe of the Kansas City Fed:

In recent years, the U.S. economy has undergone a change in the behavior of productivity over the business cycle. Until the mid-1980s, productivity growth rose and fell with output growth. But since then the relationship between these two variables has weakened, and they have even moved in different directions.

I did some graphs comparing RGDP and TFP, then. But what strikes me just now is the contrast of Van Zandweghe's remark to that of Noah in the earlier post:

The recessions of the early 1980s were very short and "V-shaped," despite the extremely low rate of TFP growth at the time... By contrast, the early-2000s recession, though shallow, was much longer and "U-shaped", despite the recovery in TFP growth.

When I came upon that quote this morning I got stuck on the word "despite". Noah's use of that word implies things that shouldn't have coincided with other things, did coincide. Short recessions coincided with low TFP growth. Long recessions coincided with high TFP growth. I don't object to the coincidences. I object to Noah trying to shove "despite" down my throat before I've considered whether it's appropriate to say "despite" or whether it would be better to say "which makes sense because of". To whit:

The recessions of the early 1980s were very short and "V-shaped," which makes sense because of the extremely low rate of TFP growth at the time... By contrast, the early-2000s recession, though shallow, was much longer and "U-shaped", which makes sense because of the recovery in TFP growth.

I don't think it makes sense to say "despite". In a time of high productivity -- lots of output per worker -- you lose a lot of output with each unemployed worker. So I think it makes sense that severe recessions and high TFP go together. And in a time of low productivity, losing a worker means less loss of output. So I think it makes sense that mild recessions and low TFP go together.

I don't think it makes sense to say "despite".

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Noah is implicitly arguing that there is a particular relation between productivity growth and economic growth. Van Zandweghe of Kansas City is arguing that there *was* a particular relation, which then changed, and now there is a different particular relation.

I couldn't see the change Van Zandweghe described. Nor can I see the relation Noah described.