Turkey needs higher productivity for continual growth says World Bank

In a written statement, the World Bank Group said it recently launched an economic memorandum on "Firm Productivity and Economic Growth in Turkey" at a conference held in the capital Ankara.

"While acknowledging the importance of economic stability, the memorandum explored how Turkey could achieve sustained growth by accelerating productivity, particularly in 'pro-development' sectors, capable of delivering both added value and employment," it said.

The World Bank highlighted that economic integration and innovation have boosted firm-level productivity, though reforms could further accelerate these positive impacts.

"The analysis shows that the most productive industries and firms are not necessarily capturing the most resources.

"Apart from a handful of industries such as motor vehicles, basic metals and textiles, productivity in manufacturing has more recently stagnated," it said.

The group said that while construction and services have expanded rapidly, they also exhibit low and falling productivity.

"In services, there is scope to expand more sophisticated industries like information and communications technologies which raise productivity in manufacturing and other sectors," it said.

The World Bank also noted that growth and development required more productive companies to compete in the current world market, which can be enabled through structural reforms.

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Denmark growing stronger internationally

A tiny island of hope may be developing in the middle of the current sea of lousy economic news.

Denmark appears to be growing stronger when it comes to competing with other countries. For years, high wages and low productivity have caused the country to lag behind its foreign competitors, but it now seems to be making up some lost ground, according to the latest figures from the Business and Growth Ministry.

"I do not want to be overly optimistic, but there are cautiously positive signs that we may be able to celebrate," the business and growth minister, Ole Sohn (Socialistisk Folkeparti), told Politiken newspaper.

Read more: Denmark growing stronger internationally | The Copenhagen Post | The Danish News in English

The U.S. productivity farce - by Pedro da Costa

Economists don’t agree on much but they do tend to converge on one idea – productivity improvements are the key to long-term prosperity. Except that who benefits from productivity increases matters as much as the efficiency gains themselves, according to two reports from the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

The first finds that rising income inequality in the United States means that the benefits of better productivity are accruing mainly to the very wealthy. The EPI offers this startling nugget of data as basic food for thought: U.S. productivity grew 80.4 percent from 1973 to 2011, while average hourly compensation rose just 39.2 percent in the same period, and median compensation, which excludes outliers, gained a paltry 10.7 percent.

Read more The U.S. productivity farce | MacroScope

Outside the Beltway: ‘New’ Europe Outworks ‘Old’ - James Joyner

For the complete report from the Outside the Beltway click on this link

In a study published Wednesday by Dublin-based EU think tank Eurofound, official and reported work hours were compared across the EU. Europe’s hardest workers, at least in terms of hours spent on the job? Full-time workers in Romania and Bulgaria, the EU’s newest members, put in 41.7 hours a week. Germany ranked 6th, with workers reporting 41.1 hours a week spent at work. The report, which analyzed statistical data from all of the EU member countries, found that the 15 pre-2004 members of the EU spend an average of 39. 5 hours a week on the job, while people in the 12 new member states work 40.6 hours on average. Of the top 10 countries, seven — Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Hungary — joined the EU after 2004.

Vacation time also varies dramatically from country to country. Swedes have a generous 33 days per year of paid vacation, while Estonians get just 20. Germans rank high here, too — third on Eurofound’s list, with 30 days per year.

ElectricNews.net:ICT is lynchpin of Europe's economy - by Emmet Ryan

For the complete report from ElectricNews.net click on this link

ICT is lynchpin of Europe's economy - by Emmet Ryan

The Commission's annual progress report on i2010, the EU's digitally led strategy for growth and jobs, said ICT contributed nearly 50 percent of productivity growth across the European Union between 2000 and 2004. "Our integrated European policy for growth and jobs is now starting to pay dividends," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "However, let's not be complacent. ICT companies in Europe are still not able to profit from economies of scale in view of regulatory fragmentation that blocks the emergence of pan-European services and hurts the chances of e-communication operators and software companies to compete on the world market. The EU and its Member States need in particular to make a greater effort to remove the remaining impediments within the internal market for online services."

In the study, which is the second annual report on i2010, Ireland topped the EU rankings in several ICT categories. Ireland was given the top ranking in the EU 25 for ICT sector share of total GDP, ICT sector share of total employment and ICT sector growth.