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<oembed><version>1.0</version><provider_name>naked capitalism</provider_name><provider_url>https://www.nakedcapitalism.com</provider_url><author_name>Yves Smith</author_name><author_url>https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/author/yves-smith</author_url><title>Debunking the Idea That Labor Productivity is the Cause of Euro Periphery Woes | naked capitalism</title><type>rich</type><width>600</width><height>338</height><html>&lt;blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="C1XIkiSsUJ"&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/04/debunking-the-idea-that-labor-productivity-is-the-cause-of-euro-periphery-woes.html"&gt;Debunking the Idea That Labor Productivity is the Cause of Euro Periphery Woes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/04/debunking-the-idea-that-labor-productivity-is-the-cause-of-euro-periphery-woes.html/embed#?secret=C1XIkiSsUJ" width="600" height="338" title="&#x201C;Debunking the Idea That Labor Productivity is the Cause of Euro Periphery Woes&#x201D; &#x2014; naked capitalism" data-secret="C1XIkiSsUJ" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
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</html><description>"Periphery" seems to be the new euphemism for the Countries Formerly Knows As PIIGS (which sometimes confusingly includes Belgium, since its finances aren't so hot either).  The stereotype about these Whatever You Want to Call Them countries is that they are less productive than export powerhouse Germany, ergo they need to Work Harder and Accept Lower Wages (liberal use of capitals due to the force which which these pronouncements are typically made).  But this thinking does not stand up well to analysis, as a VoxEu post by Jesus Felipe and Utsav Kumar demonstrates. They contend that conventional wisdom relies on unit labor costs, which is a flawed metric:</description></oembed>

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