Since the mid-1990s, labor productivity growth in Europe has significantly slowed compared to earlier decades. In contrast, labor productivity growth in the United States accelerated, so that a new productivity gap has opened up. This paper shows that this development is attributable to the...

In this paper, we "slice up the global value chain" using a decomposition technique that has recently become feasible due to the development of the World Input-Output Database. We trace the value added by all labor and capital that is directly and indirectly needed for the production of final...