Divergences in Productivity Between Europe and the United States

Edited by Gilbert Cette, Michel Fouquin and Hans-Werner Sinn

in Books from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In the 1990s, labour productivity growth accelerated in the United States, yet slowed down in other industrialised countries, reversing a three decade long tendency of convergence. The book explores this phenomenon. It first identifies the methodological and statistical problems involved in measuring productivity and making cross-country comparisons in this area. Then the role of factor accumulation for the diverging trends across the OECD world, with a particular focus on the dispersion of information and communication technology (ICT), is reviewed. In-depth studies of single countries provide further insights regarding growth trends in the United States, Japan, Germany, and France. Finally, empirical investigations regarding the determinants of productivity growth at an international level complement the analyses. The results stress that public infrastructure and education, employment rates and working hours, and ICT spending play an important role in explaining the existing differences in levels and changes of productivity.

Keywords: Economics and Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D0 L0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
ISBN: 9781847206411
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/isbn/9781847206411 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eebook:12971

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this book

More books in Books from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().