France: paradox of the efficient socialist
A recent editorial in the Asian Financial Times (9 May 2007) looked at the relative economic performance of France, Germany, Italy, the UK and America. The data showed much of the usual information — with America clearly leading in GDP/capital and America and the UK having lower unemployment.
It was the extra piece of economic data that caught my eye — productivity (measured as GDP per hour worked). The first thing to note was that the highest productivity was with France, Germany and America… with the UK and Italy lagging behind. At first glance this seems to suggest that France (with it’s socialist tendencies) is more efficient than the UK and as efficient as America.
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