--- canonical_url: "https://csls.ca/ipm-archive/ipm-issue-34/cyclical-downturn-or-slowing-trend-a-review-article-on-productivity-puzzles-across-europe/" title: "Cyclical Downturn or Slowing Trend? A Review Article on Productivity Puzzles across Europe" author: name: "CSLS" url: "https://csls.ca/author/cslc/" date_published: "2026-07-13T07:52:37+00:00" date_modified: "2026-07-13T07:52:37+00:00" post_type: "ipm" summary: "" ipm_issue_period: - "Spring 2018" ipm_keyword: - "cyclical" - "Europe" - "Fernald" - "financial crisis" - "Germany" - "labour market" - "productivity" - "review article" - "TFP" - "trend" ipm_research_theme: - "Productivity trends and comparisons" ipm_country_focus: - "Europe" - "Germany" - "International" - "United States" featured_image: "https://csls.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IPM_50_banner.webp" status: "publish" --- # Cyclical Downturn or Slowing Trend? A Review Article on Productivity Puzzles across Europe Canonical URL: https://csls.ca/ipm-archive/ipm-issue-34/cyclical-downturn-or-slowing-trend-a-review-article-on-productivity-puzzles-across-europe/ # Cyclical Downturn or Slowing Trend? A Review Article on Productivity Puzzles across Europe [Download full PDF article](https://csls.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/IPM-Issue-34-6-Fernald.pdf) Cite this article × Cite this article as: Fernald, John. 2018. “Cyclical Downturn or Slowing Trend? A Review Article on Productivity Puzzles across Europe.” International Productivity Monitor, No. 34 (Spring 2018): 110–117. https://www.csls.ca/ipm-archive/ipm-issue-34/cyclical-downturn-or-slowing-trend-a-review-article-on-productivity-puzzles-across-europe/ ## Author: - John Fernald INSEAD; Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco ## IPM Issue 34 Spring 2018 pp. 110–117 ## Related IPM articles [Is the SNA Still Useful? 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This review emphasizes first, that European productivity growth has been slowing for decades — it is not just a recession and post-recession phenomenon. Second, the book’s analysis of labour markets, which highlights incentives to hoard labour, is relevant for understanding cyclical fluctuations in total factor productivity (TFP) around that trend. For example, institutions in Germany encouraged use of intensive margins (hours per worker and maybe effort), so measured TFP fell sharply in the recession but then rebounded quickly. The labour-market analysis in the book sheds little light on the slowing TFP trend. In the past few years, the healing process Productivity Puzzles across Europe examine la productivité européenne avant, pendant et depuis la grande crise financière, avec un accent particulier sur les institutions du marché du travail propres à chaque pays. Cette recension souligne d’abord que la croissance de la productivité européenne ralentit depuis des décennies — il ne s’agit pas uniquement d’un phénomène de récession et d’après-récession. Ensuite, l’analyse du marché du travail présentée dans l’ouvrage, qui met en lumière les incitations à la rétention de la main-d’œuvre, est pertinente pour comprendre les fluctuations cycliques de la PMF autour de cette tendance. Par exemple, les institutions allemandes ont encouragé l’utilisation des marges intensives (heures par travailleur), de sorte que la PMF mesurée a fortement chuté lors de la récession mais s’est ensuite rapidement redressée. [Download full PDF](https://csls.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/IPM-Issue-34-6-Fernald.pdf)