Determinants of Wealth Disparities in the EU: A Multi-scale Development Accounting Investigation

This paper presents a development accounting framework in order to quantify the determinants of disparities in GDP per hour worked within the EU in 2016. Its originality is twofold insofar as, on the one hand, it theoretically extends the existing framework from 2 factors up to $$n$$ n explanatory factors and on the other, it numerically illustrates this same framework in case where $$n=3$$ n = 3 factors. This illustration is made macro-economically between 19 EU countries—representing 90% of its aggregate GDP—and sectorally between their market, state, and mixed sectors. The calibration data come from the latest EU-KLEMS and PWT versions. Examination of the results by decomposition shows a strong proximity of macroeconomic standard deviations ($ 13.74/h) and the market (13.38) and non-market (12.34) spheres. The differences between countries are fundamentally (around 90% according to each of the three spheres) explained by the disparities in labor quality (and around 10% by the disparities in capital deepening). The profile, however, is not at all the same in real estate activities (mixed sector) whose GDP per hour’ standard deviation reaches $ 570.28/h and is completely explained by the disparities in capital deepening.