The European Union lags behind the United States both in rates of employment and real wages. This study analyzes the relationship between wages, productivity and human capital in 5 European Union countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, in comparison with the USA. Firstly...

The main emphasis of labour policies in several EU countries seem to have been addressed during the period 1985-2005 to contain the increases of real wages, under the misleading belief that lower wages could lead the policies to get higher employment rates. We show that the main policies to...