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So, I was pondering the weakness of the UK economy (I am British) and its lagging productivity performance. I was thinking that capital deployed per worker would be an explanatory variable.

Looking at figures from www.tradingeconomics.com: Gross Fixed Capital Formation data : Germany |United Kingdom|France|United States.

Dividing through by population (proxy for working population) I get the following per capita figures

UK       $1,506.79 
Germany	 $1,860.17 
France   $1,858.21 
USA      $8,715.27

If the Sterling/dollar exchange before Brexit were used then the three European economies are very close to each at $1800. But the key standout is the USA figure its miles ahead.

So I am now wondering why is United States Gross Capital Formation per capita so far ahead of the big 3 European economies?

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    $\begingroup$ Are you comparing quarterly or annual figures, or possibly annual for US only? Looking at the OECD figures for 2014 (oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/… - click on Read to access the table for a country, for pdf you need to subscribe) the disparity appears much less. $\endgroup$
    – Adam Bailey
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 13:10
  • $\begingroup$ @Adam Bailey: ah, I will check my figures. $\endgroup$
    – S Meaden
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 13:11

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