ML-Implode News - Wealthier countries have more leisure time -- with one big exception

But the extent of that trade-off -- time versus stuff -- hasn't been the same in all countries, as the chart above illustrates. "Average annual hours worked per capita in the U.S. are 877 versus only 535 in France: the average person in France works less than two-thirds as much as the average person in the U.S.," Jones and Klenow write. You see similar numbers in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.
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But in their new research, forthcoming in the American Economic Review, Jones and Klenow attempt to devise a "a summary statistic for the economic well-being" that goes beyond GDP.... They find that when you throw these other qualities into the mix, the economic well-being gap between the United States and other wealthy countries shrinks... "Living standards in Western Europe are much closer to those in the United States than it would appear from GDP per capita," Jones and Klenow conclude. "Longer lives with more leisure time and more equal consumption in Western Europe largely offset their lower average consumption vis a visthe United States."

Relevant:

Wealthier countries have more leisure time -- with one big exception