Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?

Edward C. Prescott

No 321, Staff Report from Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Abstract: Americans now work 50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians. This was not the case in the early 1970s when the Western Europeans worked more than Americans. In this paper, I examine the role of taxes in accounting for the differences in labor supply across time and across countries, in particular, the effective marginal tax rate on labor income. The population of countries considered is that of the G-7 countries, which are major advanced industrial countries. The surprising finding is that this marginal tax rate accounts for the predominance of the differences at points in time and the large change in relative labor supply over time with the exception of the Italian labor supply in the early 1970s.

Keywords: Hours of labor; Taxation; Labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-eec, nep-lab and nep-ltv
Date: 2003
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Related works:
Working Paper: Why do Americans Work so Much More than Europeans? (2004)
Working Paper: Why Do Americans Work So Much More Than Europeans? (2004)
Journal Article: Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans? (2004)
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