Because different countries have different labor force participation rates and different unemployment rates. Germany has both a higher unemployment rate than the US and a lower labor force participation rate, with a lot of discrimination against women in the work force existing and poor support systems for them to work. The latter holds for Japan as well, although the unemployment rate is not so high. Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, September 03, 1999 1:19 PM Subject: Re: Wolf on civil society etc.
>
>> Financial Times - September 1, 1999
>>
>> UNCIVIL SOCIETY
>>
>> The ill-fated multilateral agreement on investment shows the need to
>> confront the claims of pressure groups hostile to globalisation,
>> writes Martin Wolf <Martin.Wolf at ft.com>
>>
>> In 1997, according to the World Bank, the 10 economies with the
>> highest incomes per head were, in order, Singapore, the US,
>> Switzerland, Hong Kong, Norway, Japan, Denmark, Belgium, Austria and
>> Canada. Two things should strike anyone who looks at this list:
>> first, these are all internationally open, market economies; second,
>> seven of them have populations of less than 10m.
>
>Not that long ago, Doug posted a list ranking GDP per employed person
>(using BLS figures for employment and the World Bank figures for dollar
>GDP) that went like this:
>
>Germany $77,150
>Japan 64,564
>France 63,238
>U.S. 60,467
>Sweden 57,297
>Italy 57,135
>Netherlands 50,530
>UK 48,111
>Australia 46,686
>Canada 43,594
>
>Which is a very different list that leads to almost the opposite
>conclusion: that the race goes to the cossetted, and that the big guys are
>all big. But why should income per head differ so wildly from GDP per
>employed head?
>
>Michael
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
>
>
>