You seem to have misunderstood something.
The technological progress I mentioned is vastly more general, not more narrowly defined than 'better machines'.

The introduction of timestamps to reduce absentee rates would contribute to it, for example. Also legislative changes affecting productivity. Nice weather in a given year. Even higher world market prices for crops contribute to it (minus their effect on domestic inflation).

It's so general that so many factors are placed in this leftover aggregate that it's useless in the short term.

Nevertheless, it's great for long-term analysis.
It makes sense to calculate the rate of this technological progress of the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's. This is the terrain of Kondratieff's long waves and seems to be exactly the same terrain as the stuff I replied to.


To use the technological progress variable I referred to may appear to be an excessive aggregation, but the topic is about technological progress caused over decades and in more than even only the entire Western world. You need a huge aggregation to match this. You cannot investigate the productivity effects of individual tools or technologies in many years and in many countries in parallel. There aren't enough man-years available for such an approach.
Look at the technological progress variable (relatively easy to get) for the G7 countries instead.