Tech lift to productivity overlooked? The Fed doesn't think so

San Francisco

STEVE Gutmann used to have a basement that he never used. His Honda Civic sat idle in front of his Portland, Oregon house.

Now strangers use Getaround.com to book Mr Gutmann's US$6-an-hour car for errands and travellers stay in his newly refurbished basement apartment, listed at US$115 a night on AirBnb. Mr Gutmann and a business partner are developing a new app that lets people get more use out of their possessions.

The apps mean "pretty significant productivity gains for a full range of things, from empty rooms to idle cars and bikes and all the other things that are marooned in people's garages", Mr Gutmann says.

That "sharing economy" has lured billions of dollars from investors, yet so far, it barely seems to register in US economic data. Productivity - an area of the economy particularly sensitive to technological advances - has grown at just 1.25 per ce…