Rückgang der europäischen Produktivität - Gründe und Konsequenzen

Ein ‚CEPS Policy Brief Paper‘ gelangt zu dem
Schluss, dass es unwahrscheinlich ist, dass eine Steigerung
des Anteils von Frauen und älteren Menschen auf dem
Arbeitsmarkt erzielt werden kann, ohne dass diese
Ausweitung der Beschäftigung von einem
vorübergehenden
langsamen Produktivitätsanstieg begleitet
wird. 

In March 2000 in Lisbon, EU heads of state
and government set the strategic goal to become
the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the world, capable
of sustainable economic growth with more and
better jobs and greater social cohesion. These
commitments were confirmed at the Barcelona
European Council, which agreed that investment
in European R&D should be increased to 3%
of GDP by 2010. 

The move forward towards the Lisbon and
Barcelona goals was, however, rather slow
during the first three years of the Lisbon
strategy. Growth in output and, notably,
productivity has been dismal and little
progress has been made towards reaching the
R&D target. 

Evidence presented in a CEPS Working
Document by Francesco Daveri and initially
prepared under a study undertaken for the
European Parliament suggests that the slowdown
of productivity in the 1990s and early years of
the present decade was more than just a
business-cycle phenomenon. In fact, the
slowdown of productivity growth seems to have
been largely attributable to the inclusion in
the labour market of groups with a
comparatively low productivity. 

The paper concludes that in the short term,
up to 2010, the highly desirable increase in
the labour force participation of women and the
elderly is unlikely to be achieved without
accepting that this expansion of employment
will be accompanied by a temporary slow rise in
productivity, as new groups have to go through
a learning process and acquire the skills
required in the information society. This makes
efforts to raise the level of R&D and
innovation towards the Barcelona target all the
more compelling.

To read the full 
CEPS

analysis by 
Daniel Gros and Jørgen
Mortensen

, 
click here

.