Er der et dansk produktivitetskollaps?

Recently the Danish economy has been described as having serious structural problems showing up as a considerable decrease in productivity growth. In this study we question if this is so. We analyze the Danish growth process using formal statistical tests. The tests show that the annual growth rates of GDP per capita and of GDP per employee – from the early 1950s until the late 2000s – are well described as random noise around a constant mean. In contrast, the average annual growth rate of GDP per work hour appears to have declined during the period 1960-2007. But, the significant decline occurred in the 1970s, while the latter period has seen a fairly constant average annual growth rate. Hence, we find no statistically significant indication of a productivity slowdown after 1995 – or later. We also discuss the productivity growth in a cross-country perspective comparing the Danish growth to the growth rates in other OECD countries. We ask if the Danish experience gives cause for alarm. Our answer challenges most of the recent claims of a Danish growth collapse as we argue that the observed outcomes are well in line with expectations once conditional convergence effects are considered.