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Indeed. One could look at the GDP per hour worked.

France and Germany GDP per hour worked is only about 6% less than the US (while it was mostly the same until 2008) [1] [2].

Seems like most of the difference can be explained by stronger work-life balance policies chosen by European (sick days, holidays, earlier retirement and parental leave).

[1] https://i.imgur.com/zuZ4pYz.png [2] https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

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France/Germany can still be said to be falling behind in this graph - but super interesting to see anyway.

I think part of the explanation is that the finance and high-tech sectors are way overvalued in money, and they shift the balance massively. This "inflates" the GDP in the U.S. This has basically been a conscious policy in the U.S. - "quantitative easing".

6% is a big drop. Because it is productivity per hour worked and not overall (i.e. total of hours worked) "stronger work-life balance" policies should make no difference and furthermore nothing significant changed in that respect since 2005-2008.

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