The Netherlands is among the advanced economies characterized by high levels of labor productivity but persistently slow productivity growth. This paper studies long-run productivity trends and reviews policies of the last 70 years with potential effects on productivity in the Netherlands. We start documenting the productivity slowdown in the Netherlands which is driven primarily by weaker within-sector productivity growth. This slowdown coincided with a drop in TFP and reduced capital deepening. Next, we follow the typology of van Ark et al. (2023) to systematically categorize and compare a wide range of productivity related policies. The paper concludes by drawing lessons for future pro-productivity policies for the Netherlands, based on the combined insights from our empirical analysis and policy review.
Authors Mark van der Plaat, Konstantin Sommer, Leon Bettendorf