Summary: Some wealthy countries, like Germany and the UK, are facing economic decline and falling behind the U.S. in productivity. A report by Mario Draghi highlights issues like a lack of innovation and high energy costs as key challenges for Europe. The report serves as a wake-up call, but it misses important factors like aging populations that may also affect growth.
The gap in living standards between the EU and the U.S. is large — in general, Europeans are less than 3/4 as rich as Americans. And contrary to popular belief, only a small amount of the gap can be accounted for by the fact that Americans work more (View Highlight)
Europeans simply produce less for every hour of work than Americans do. And the gap is growing — in the mid-90s, the EU’s productivity was about equal to America’s, but in the three decades since, the countries that were part of the EU at that time have fallen significantly behind (View Highlight)