Productivity performance in three small European countries: Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands

This paper describes and analyses the productivity performance of three small European countries: Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. It uses the EUKLEMS database for describing productivity developments for those countries in an international perspective. This paper particularly explores three specific topics for the three countries considered: i) catching up or falling behind?, ii) productivity in market services, iii) industrial specialisation and structural change. Productivity levels of Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands are high. However, both labour productivity growth rates and MFP growth rates in Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands have been considerably lower than in the United States since the mid 1990s. To some extent, these lower growth rates are owing to the disappearance of the catch up bonus diminishing the possibility to learn from the United States.