A Survey Of International Comparisons Of Productivity

Productivity is the ratio of output to one input such as labour services or to inputs taken in their totality. Since economics is in its very essence concerned with the organisation of inputs (scarce means) to produce outputs (satisfy human wants), comparisons of productivity go to the heart of the assessment of economic performance. By far the most common form of comparisons is over time in a given country.1 We are concerned here, however, with the less frequently made comparisons between countries.