Measuring Productivity - Finland in an International Comparison

We compare the levels and development of labour productivity in different countries, especially in the private sectors of the economies. We use several data sources, including the Eurostat Structural Business Statistics and Labour Costs Survey databases as well as the data available from the EU KLEMS project. This combination of data allows for a comparison of alternative productivity indicators. The calculations give us a better understanding of the uncertainties in productivity comparisons than if only one data source were used. The results indicate that Finland has joined the top league of countries in many sectors of manufacturing. There have also occurred favourable developments in many sectors of private services relative to other countries. On the other hand, Finland has thus by now lost most of its earlier source of productivity growth, i.e. its position as a catching-up country. Consequently, it will be more difficult to raise productivity faster than other industrialised countries in the future. Meanwhile, our separate analysis of available data sources indicates that cross-country comparisons of productivity involve a lot of uncertainties, especially when using data at very disaggregated sectoral levels.