A study of Swedish data shows that such changes have raised productivity growth by 0.2 percentage points a year during the second half of the 1990s. 6  2  ITPS (2007). 3  Conway, Nicoletti, de Rosa and Steiner (2006). 4  See, for instance, Crépon, Duguet and Mairesse (1998). 5  Esser, Villalba and Tarantola (2007). 6  Forsling & Lindström (2004). BIS Review 12/2008  3  Organisation important for productivity growth IT is available all around the world at roughly the same price, but the differences are substantial with regard to how different countries and sectors use this technology to make their production more efficient (see Figure 5). The United States and Europe have experienced a similar productivity growth in the IT-producing sectors, but the Americans have had stronger growth in sectors with intensive use of IT. This includes, for instance, the wholesale and retail trade sectors and financial services. Studies indicate that one of the explanations for the United States’ relative productivity advantage over Europe is that the US companies have been quicker and better at adapting their organisations to the new technology. 7 One factor that might contribute to this difference is that the stricter regulations in the labour market in Europe mean that it takes longer time and costs more money to reorganise. Sweden is an exception in this context. We have seen a strong growth in productivity in the sectors using IT at the same time as we have a relatively regulated labour market.
In the long term there are the opportunities that the free movement of goods, capital and not least people provide for economic growth in both the “old” and “new” parts of the EU. Finally, I intend to touch upon how the discussions in the EU have changed now that the 10 new member states have joined the debate. I will deliberately try to avoid using the words “west” and “east”. Partly because it is quite simply geographically misleading; we say “eastern Europe” even though Prague and Ljubljana are situated west of Stockholm, not to mention Vienna or Athens. We forget that Riga and Tallinn are closer to Stockholm than Gothenburg is. But partly also because it is historically misleading since the new member states do not constitute a cultural or political bloc. Besides their fifty years of oppression, Hungary, Latvia and Slovenia have less in common with each other historically than with Austria, Sweden and Italian, respectively, and belong moreover to three completely different language groups. I prefer instead “new” and “old” as a way of referring to the situation that the 10 new member states find themselves in. The short term: the path to EMU In connection with the EU enlargement there has been an intense discussion in recent years, both in the old and new EU countries, about what requirements should be imposed on the new member states’ economic policy.