A Comparison of Structural Productivity Levels in the Major Industrialised Countries

Abstract

Hourly labour productivity, along with average hours worked, the employment rate and the working-age population as a share of the total population, is one of the accounting aggregates that determine per capita GDP. Yet according to many analyses, hourly labour productivity in several European countries is much the same as or even higher than in the United States, while per capita GDP is markedly lower (see Cette 2004, 2005 for a summary of this work).