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About European mentality: I got an impression people in general work harder in US.

by p1esk 4y ago

sofixa 4y ago
Longer or harder? https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_pr... There's barely any productivity per hour worked difference between the US and most European countries.
- p1esk 4y ago
  I'm not sure how to interpret the "GDP per working hour" metric. Are people in Ireland significantly more productive than people in other countries? Or how do we explain Ireland's significant lead on those charts? It sounds as vague or as useful as "the average temperature of all patients in a hospital". Also, the two links you provided show very different ranking of countries. At the same time, I don't know how to properly measure human productivity. I mean, how do you compare productivity of people working at OpenAI to productivity of people working at Walmart?
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > Also, the two links you provided show very different ranking of countries Different years. > At the same time, I don't know how to properly measure human productivity. I mean, how do you compare productivity of people working at OpenAI to productivity of people working at Walmart? Exactly. Just because Ireland has a lot of services HQed there due to a beneficial tax regime doesn't make an Irish person working 40h at Google who count all EU revenues there more or less productive than someone working at a midsized German manufacturer of critical car components (say brakes). GDP per hour worked is the least bad way of measuring we have, and I'm not aware of other ones. It can easily be skewed though, because it relies on a poor metric at its base, GDP. My point was just that the difference between US and EU is minimal, with the imperfect way of measuring it. If anyone has a better way I'm all ears, but I highly doubt it will show anything different.

About European mentality: I got an impression people in general work harder in US.

by p1esk 4y ago

About European mentality: I got an impression people in general work harder in US.

Longer or harder? https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_pr... There's barely any productivity per hour worked difference between the US and most European countries.

p1esk 4y ago
I'm not sure how to interpret the "GDP per working hour" metric. Are people in Ireland significantly more productive than people in other countries? Or how do we explain Ireland's significant lead on those charts? It sounds as vague or as useful as "the average temperature of all patients in a hospital". Also, the two links you provided show very different ranking of countries. At the same time, I don't know how to properly measure human productivity. I mean, how do you compare productivity of people working at OpenAI to productivity of people working at Walmart?
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Also, the two links you provided show very different ranking of countries Different years. > At the same time, I don't know how to properly measure human productivity. I mean, how do you compare productivity of people working at OpenAI to productivity of people working at Walmart? Exactly. Just because Ireland has a lot of services HQed there due to a beneficial tax regime doesn't make an Irish person working 40h at Google who count all EU revenues there more or less productive than someone working at a midsized German manufacturer of critical car components (say brakes). GDP per hour worked is the least bad way of measuring we have, and I'm not aware of other ones. It can easily be skewed though, because it relies on a poor metric at its base, GDP. My point was just that the difference between US and EU is minimal, with the imperfect way of measuring it. If anyone has a better way I'm all ears, but I highly doubt it will show anything different.