Abstract

The article focuses on productivity in the U.S. as of 1973. Productivity in the U.S. has been declining relative to that of many other industrial countries. An examination of relative measures of the rates of productivity changes shows that, while actual productivity in the U.S. leads all other countries, its yearly growth rate is lower than other industrial countries. This slowdown in relative growth has been observable for about twenty years, but in the last five years the effect has been dramatic. With 1963 as the base year, an index of relative productivity has been used to compare the productivity of a great number of countries with that of the U.S. In examining the charts that depict the relative index values of various countries, it is evident that in the last five years the productivity performance of the U.S. relative to other countries has deteriorated. Japan's extensive growth was not unexpected, but the number of other countries which exhibited similarly large relative advantages, however, was. U.S. world trade relations undoubtedly have been responsive to the prolonged deterioration of America's relative productivity growth rate.