Productivity in South and East Europe as a share of U.S. rate 1950-1999, by country

In 1950, labor productivity in the given Southern and Eastern European countries was approximately 23 percent of labor productivity in the United States. At the end of the so-called "Golden Age" in Europe, a period of extreme economic growth between the early 1950s and the Recession of 1973-1975, productivity had increased to 44 percent of the U.S. rate in the Southern European countries. In contrast, it had only increased to 29 percent in the Eastern Bloc countries. In the 1990s, as the Eastern European countries transitioned from socialist to market-based economies, productivity compared to the U.S. fell in relation to 1973's rates. However, this was not the case in Southern Europe; in Spain, for example, productivity was almost 70 percent of the U.S.' rate in the 1990s.

By comparison, labor productivity was between 40 and 60 percent of the U.S.' rate across the advanced Western European countries in 1950. By the end of the century, most Western European nations, especially France, Germany, and the Netherlands, had matched labor productivity in the U.S. in terms of GDP per hour worked.