Felix

Big, Fat Cognitive Illusion (and all of us are more Greek than we think)

markdow:

Here’s the table that was screaming of self-deception:

Look at the first column. Once the giggles have subsided, and you’ve shown it to your colleagues so that they can share in the derision, don’t you wonder how it is that Greeks—and only the Greeks—believe they, and not the Germans, are the hardest working people in the Eurozone? Okay, you may be tempted to think it’s somehow a mistake. Or you might consider for a sec whether tax evasion and statistical manipulation is somehow considered work by the Greeks surveyed. But, most likely, the answer is Greeks at this stage of the crisis are deep into a siege mentality. They increasingly see themselves as victims, with their suffering exacerbated by the demands of outsiders. They are simultaneously trying to buck themselves up by convincing themselves of their stoicism in the face of this onslaught and lashing out at those who they perceive are doing them harm. Perfectly in tune, the report finds that “Anti-German sentiment is largely contained to Greece, at least for the moment”. We know the Greeks have long been lying to the EU. The table shows that they are now lying to themselves as well.

There’s

But, are they really lying? Check out the OECD’s average annual hours actually worked per worker table. Germany: bottom of the list, at 1,419 hours per year. Greece: top of the list, at 2,109 hours per year. (The US is right in the middle, at 1,778 hours per year, right in line with the OECD average.)

I know a lot of Germans (I’m half-German myself), and they’re always travelling, or taking days off, or visiting family, or somesuch. I was told once that it’s been impossible to take a proper census in Germany for decades, since at any given time 10% of the country is abroad on holiday.

It’s entirely possible — indeed, I’d say it’s certain — that for the 1,419 hours that Germans work each year, they work harder, in total-factor-productivity terms, than their Greek counterparts do. But if a chap works really hard for 4 hours a day, would you say he works harder than another chap who works less hard for 14 hours a day? I have no idea how to make such determinations. And if you’re measuring inputs rather than outputs, I think the Greeks have a decent claim to being right here.