Value: What You Pay Versus What You Get

As previously discussed, a country’s productivity and competitiveness are mostly a function of the relative value it offers, especially for its labor. As shorthand for this, we refer to our gauge of this relative value as “what you pay versus what you get”; it reflects a) the cost and value of employees and b) the levels of investment. Countries that have well-educated workers that are relatively inexpensive and that have higher investment rates grow faster than those that don’t.

如前所述，一个国家的生产力和竞争力主要是其所提供的相对价值，特别是其劳动力的一个函数。作为这方面的简写，我们将这个相对价值的衡量指标称为“你所付出的与你所得到的”;它反映了a）员工的成本和价值，以及b）投资水平。拥有受过良好教育的工人比较便宜，投资率高的国家比没有受过良好教育的工人要快。

To construct this gauge we first looked at the average cost of an educated worker, adjusted for the average hours worked (including the average workweek, vacation time, and holidays) and adjusted for the quality of education (based on international tests). We also created a gauge of the productivity-adjusted cost of labor (a spot picture of how much workers offer relative to what you pay). And we created a gauge of working hard, where we look at the portion of the population working, and then how many hours each of those workers puts in (again adjusting for things like vacation). In addition, this gauge considers demographic shifts that change how much that society is of working age relative to those who are very young or old and dependent. We weighted these equally. This gives us perspective on the cost and value of employees. We also added in a gauge of savings and investment that was also weighted equally. As shown in the correlations, all of these measures were individually highly effective predictors of future growth, as was the aggregate of them. On its own this gauge is 63% correlated to future growth. Most interesting are the individual country rankings by measure, which are shown in the charts that follow. We suggest picking a few countries that you are most interested in and seeing where they stand in these rankings. As we progress through the charts in this section, clear pictures will emerge.

为了构建这个量表，我们首先考察了受过教育的工人的平均成本，根据平均工作时数（包括平均工作周，休假时间和假期）进行了调整，并根据国际测试对教育质量进行了调整。我们还创建了一个衡量生产力调整后的劳动力成本（相对于您支付的工资提供多少工资的现场图）。我们创造了一个努力工作的指标，我们在哪里看待工作人口的部分，然后再看几个工作人员的时间（再次调整为假期）。此外，这个量表考虑到人口变化，改变了社会年龄相对于那些非常年轻或者依赖的年龄。我们平均加权。这给了我们对员工成本和价值的看法。我们还增加了同样加权的储蓄和投资。如相关性所示，所有这些措施都是对未来增长的单独高效预测，总体来看也是如此。这个量表与未来的增长率有63％的关系。最有趣的是按照度量的个别国家排名，如下图所示。我们建议您选择一些您最感兴趣的国家，并看看他们在这些排名中的位置。当我们通过本节的图表进展时，将会出现清晰的图片。

India and China rank at the top of our measure of whether a country is cheap or expensive. India’s work ethic is very strong, and they’re investing a lot in their economy. And while their education scores in absolute terms are not very strong, their income levels are low enough to more than compensate. Before adjusting for cost, China scores better than India along most measures of what a country offers, but Chinese incomes have grown considerably over the last two decades and India’s workforce is cheaper. The US scores toward the top of the developed countries thanks to a well-educated workforce that is fairly cheap compared to other developed countries. Spain rates better in the cut below, which doesn’t weigh cultural elements like Spanish attitudes toward savoring life versus achieving and self-sufficiency. With labor that is expensive compared to workers of similar education levels elsewhere, Germany and France are at the bottom of the list.

印度和中国在衡量一个国家是廉价还是昂贵的国家中排在首位。印度的工作道德很强，他们在经济上投入很大。虽然他们的教育成绩绝对不是很强，但他们的收入水平低到足以弥补。在调整成本之前，中国在大多数国家提供的措施中胜过印度，但在过去二十年中，中国的收入大幅增长，印度的劳动力更便宜。由于受过良好教育的劳动力，与其他发达国家相比，美国成为发达国家顶尖的成绩。西班牙的下调幅度更好，这并不影响西班牙对品味生活与实现自给自足的态度等文化因素。与其他地方类似教育水平的劳动力相比，劳动力昂贵，德国和法国处于榜单的榜首。

Below we look at the components of our “value: what you pay versus what you get” indicator.

下面我们来看看我们的“价值：你所付出的与你所得到的”指标的组成部分。