On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Thaths <[email protected]> wrote: > Having worked in a few places around the world, I found that the > productivity per hour of an employee in India is about (#include > <made-up-math.h>) half that of an employee in the US. I have never > been able to figure out exactly why this is the case as I have not > noticed gender, race, nationality, type of job, religion or age have > any influence on this. I suspect it has something to do with the state > of economic and civic infrastructure in India, but I have only > anecdotal evidence for this. >
Economist Gregory Clark in his book "Farewell to Alms" makes the argument that workers in British cotton mills in early 20th century were much more productive than workers in Indian cotton mills, even though they had access to the same kind of technology and equipment. In the end, he concluded that usual economic explanations (like lack of institutions etc.) were not sufficient to explain this difference, and hinted that cultural and genetic factors were involved which affected "labor quality", which were beyond the domain of what economists study. Deepak
