IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10316.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why do Americans Work so Much More than Europeans?

Author

Listed:
  • Edward C. Prescott

Abstract

Americans now work 50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians. This was not the case in the early 1970s when the Western Europeans worked more than Americans. In this paper, I examine the role of taxes in accounting for the differences in labor supply across time and across countries, in particular, the effect of the marginal tax rate on labor income. The population of countries considered is that of the G-7 countries, which are the major advanced industrial countries. The surprising finding is that this marginal tax rate accounts for the predominance of the differences at points in time and the large change in relative labor supply over time with the exception of the Italian labor supply in the early 1970s. This finding has important implications for policy, in particular for making social security programs solvent.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans Work so Much More than Europeans?," NBER Working Papers 10316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10316
    Note: AG EFG PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10316.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Feenberg & Elisabeth Coutts, 1993. "An introduction to the TAXSIM model," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 189-194.
    2. Timothy J. Kehoe & Edward C. Prescott, 2002. "Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2000. "Is the stock market overvalued?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 24(Fall), pages 20-40.
    4. Hansen, Gary D., 1985. "Indivisible labor and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 309-327, November.
    5. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December.
    6. Finn E. Kydland & Carlos E. J. M. Zarazaga, 2002. "Argentina's Lost Decade," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(1), pages 152-165, January.
    7. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "Current Real-Business-Cycle Theories and Aggregate Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 430-450, June.
    8. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian, 1999. "The Great Depression in the United States from a neoclassical perspective," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 23(Win), pages 2-24.
    9. Baxter, Marianne & King, Robert G, 1993. "Fiscal Policy in General Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 315-334, June.
    10. Conesa, Juan Carlos & Garriga, Carlos, 2003. "Status Quo Problem In Social Security Reforms," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(5), pages 691-710, November.
    11. Lawrence J. Christiano & Michele Boldrin & Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2001. "Habit Persistence, Asset Returns, and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 149-166, March.
    12. Stephen Nickell, 2003. "Employment and Taxes," CESifo Working Paper Series 1109, CESifo.
    13. Steven J. Davis & Magnus Henrekson, 2004. "Tax Effects on Work Activity, Industry Mix and Shadow Economy Size: Evidence from Rich-Country Comparisons," NBER Working Papers 10509, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2003. "Accounting for the Great Depression," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 27(Spr), pages 2-8.
    15. repec:cup:macdyn:v:7:y:2003:i:5:p:691-710 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Finn E. Kydland & Carlos E. J. M. Zarazaga, 2002. "Argentina's Lost Decade," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(1), pages 152-165, January.
    17. Conny Olovsson, 2009. "Why Do Europeans Work So Little?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 39-61, February.
    18. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    19. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    20. Timothy J. Kehoe & Edward C. Prescott, 2007. "Great depressions of the twentieth century," Monograph, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, number 2007gdott.
    21. Lucas, Robert E, Jr & Rapping, Leonard A, 1969. "Real Wages, Employment, and Inflation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(5), pages 721-754, Sept./Oct.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dr. Belkacem Laabas , Dr. Weshah Razzak, "undated". "Taxes, Natural Resource Endowment, and the Supply of Labor: New Evidence," API-Working Paper Series 1005, Arab Planning Institute - Kuwait, Information Center.
    2. Razzak, W A, 2010. "A contribution towards New Zealand's tax reform," MPRA Paper 25680, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2010.
    3. Hansen, G.D. & Ohanian, L.E., 2016. "Neoclassical Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2043-2130, Elsevier.
    4. Felipe Meza & Erwan Quintin, 2005. "Financial crises and total factor productivity," Center for Latin America Working Papers 0105, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    5. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2009. "Business cycles in Bulgaria and the Baltic countries: an RBC approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 1(2), pages 148-170.
    6. Edward C. Prescott, 2002. "Prosperity and Depression: 2002 Richard T. Ely Lecture," Working Papers 618, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Çiçek, Deniz & Elgin, Ceyhun, 2011. "Not-quite-great depressions of Turkey: A quantitative analysis of economic growth over 1968–2004," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 2691-2700.
    8. Sergio Rebelo, 2005. "Real Business Cycle Models: Past, Present, and Future," NBER Working Papers 11401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Özer Karagedikli & Troy Matheson & Christie Smith & Shaun P. Vahey, 2010. "RBCs AND DSGEs: THE COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH TO BUSINESS CYCLE THEORY AND EVIDENCE," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 113-136, February.
    10. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Essays on Real Business Cycle Modeling and the Public Sector," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 130522, September.
    11. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian, 1999. "The Great Depression in the United States from a neoclassical perspective," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 23(Win), pages 2-24.
    12. Franck Portier, 2008. "Interprétation d’épisodes historiques à l’aide de modèles dynamiques stochastiques d’équilibre général," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 185(4), pages 33-46.
    13. Edward C. Prescott, 2002. "Prosperity and Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 1-15, May.
    14. Edward C. Prescott, 2006. "Nobel Lecture: The Transformation of Macroeconomic Policy and Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 203-235, April.
    15. Finn E. Kydland & Carlos E. Zarazaga, 2003. "Argentina's lost decade and subsequent recovery: hits and misses of the neoclassical growth model," Center for Latin America Working Papers 0403, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    16. Finn Kydland & Carlos E.J.M.Zarazaga, 2002. "Argentina's recovery and excess capital shallowing of the 1990s," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 29(1 Year 20), pages 35-45, June.
    17. Burnside, Craig & Eichenbaum, Martin & Fisher, Jonas D. M., 2004. "Fiscal shocks and their consequences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 89-117, March.
    18. Casey B. Mulligan, 1999. "Substitution over Time: Another Look at Life-Cycle Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 75-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Sergio Rebelo, 2005. "Real Business Cycle Models: Past, Present and Future," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 107(2), pages 217-238, June.
    20. Juan C. Conesa & Timothy J. Kehoe, 2017. "Productivity, taxes, and hours worked in Spain: 1970–2015," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 201-223, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10316. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.