Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?
By: Edward C. Prescott.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 10316; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 10316.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "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"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Also available in print.
Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 1/24/2005.
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.