US more productive than France? Mais non - Look at the facts..

One of the interesting assertions in the recent scrap about Le Web is the assertion that Europeans, and French in particular, are lazy and unproductive vs. the US of A. This is not actually totally true - below, for example, are the actual hours per GDP unit productivity figures (from Steve Hu):



So, as you can see the French, despite their "2 hour lunches" are actually the most efficient users of time - its just they use less of it in direct work. There is a discussion to be had about where those other hours are going, but it is worth noting that some of it may be used to build up (unmeasured) "social capital" - compared to the US, France has demonstrably lower abortion rates, longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rates, and lower homicide rates. Health outcomes are also better.

In other words, the higher US headline productivity also operates at a higher level of population friction and lower net outcomes per person - a bigger hit head, a poorer long tail

Also, France uses considerable less energy per person to achieve a GDP per capita not far removed from that of the USA - ie the US headline rate again is "bought" by running at higher energy burn. Which is more sustainable?

This is not to say France (and Europe) do not have major structural problems, including those with the formation of small tech startups - though it is noticeable the french are no laggards at adopting technology once it is proven, and were in fact early innovators in online services with Minitel, funded CERN, and are second to none with military hardware, a classic high tech game. Its just more to argue that just looking at headline numbers is not always helpful.