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Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

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Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#71
post #27

I know that correlation does not imply causation, but EU GDP growth is the lowest in the world [1], while Asian is the highest. 1. https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/economic-dat...

The EU country that works the most is... Greece.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still Germany and France are the most productive countries in the world: http://blog.pgi.com/2014/07/winding-work-week-infographic/

It's probably other countries that bring overall EU GDP down? Germany needs to export more Germans :-D

It is not the people, it is the whole working context, the type of businesses has a huge effect, demand hugely affects productivity, eg some businesses scale up with little extra effort (eg finance) so productivity appears to move as demand moves, while others do not.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#73

I worked for a Swedish company. Because of holidays, vacation leave, maternity and paternity leave, and sick days, there were employees of the company that I never saw. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it took quite a while to get used to it.

I live in Sweden too, and I don't get your point. Swedish productivity per worker is up at the top in global terms. Much of Swedish society is set up to benefit workers, and in particular families. So, yes maybe a colleague wasn't at work for 12 months due to paternity or maternity leave. But that's great. Companies need to be structured so that no one worker is indispensible. Once you get your head around that, everything else is logical.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#74
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I understand correctly we should compare: 1. Median household income (which should mostly be wages and not land, financial capital, technology). 2. Divided by purchasing power parity (to normalize for different prices in the country). 3. Divided by average hours worked per week for households with median income. This is however assuming that if an employee gets paid X (in purchasing power parity) for their work…

None of that would account for a massive national surplus of a globally demanded resource (oil in Norway's case). A strong currency based on heavy exports of energy can subsidize all of the other factors.

Norways Currency NOK isnt strong, its actually one of the weaker currencies:

Here it is in the last 2 years falling compared to USD and EUR.

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=NOK&to=USD&view=2Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=NOK&to=EUR&view=2Y

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#75
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that would account for a massive national surplus of a globally demanded resource (oil in Norway's case). A strong currency based on heavy exports of energy can subsidize all of the other factors.

Norways Currency NOK isnt strong, its actually one of the weaker currencies: Here it is in the last 2 years falling compared to USD and EUR. http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=NOK&to=USD&view=2Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=NOK&to=EUR&view=2Y

Norway is oil exporter. Oil is cheap now -> NOK is falling.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you wanted to convey, but Chechens live north of Caucasus mountains, which probably makes them Europeans. Now that's a scary idea.

They're about as European as the Albanians lol

The Albanians are one of the oldest population groups in Europe. They are descended from Paleo-Balkanic peoples.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#78
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know if it's "more-or-less everyone" without a formal study to prove it? You only know anecdotally, which, as you said, is subject to various cognitive biases.

But there are plenty of things that we only know anecdotally -- that one restaurant has bad service, or that line cooks smoke more than usual -- that no one gets up in arms about when we generalize in those cases. Formal studies are great when they exist, but in the absence of them it's only practical to extrapolate from incomplete data.

Does being practical preclude it being racist as well? Also, is generalizing about whole continents ever "practical"?

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is overly-simplistic, and misses three key points: 1) Labour productivity is measured as the _average_ output per worker, i.e. total output divided by total number of workers. It does not measure the _marginal_ output of an additional worker (i.e. the derivative of output with respect to number of workers). 2) Labour is not the only factor of production. There is also land, financial capital, technology, etc. 3)…

So if I understand correctly we should compare: 1. Median household income (which should mostly be wages and not land, financial capital, technology). 2. Divided by purchasing power parity (to normalize for different prices in the country). 3. Divided by average hours worked per week for households with median income. This is however assuming that if an employee gets paid X (in purchasing power parity) for their work…

No, that wouldn't work, due to the effects of my point 2 above. Google 'solow growth model' to get some idea about why.
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