Межстрановой анализ отраслевой производительности труда в 1991-2008 годах

The work presents labor productivity estimates from 1991 to 2008 for 17 countries on industry level (calculations for whole economy-level last till 2012 year). The group of countries includes USA, Canada, Brazil, Russia, Japan, China, Australia and number of major European economies. In contrast to previous works analysis captures dynamics of wider country grouping on more detailed industry level (seven ISIC. 3 industries). Productivity is calculated as value added per hour worked. It is shown that most of industries have reached 1991`s level of productivity in the early 2000s. The success in productivity increasing depends on degree of competition and restructuring processes in industry. After period of transition Russia has reached own 1991`s level of productivity (per worker) and per capita GDP in 2004 and 2005-2006 years respectively. But if we measure Russia`s productivity or per capita GDP in terms of US levels, it has not reached 1991`s quotient in 2008 (that is also true for 2012 year whole-economy productivity). In 2008 productivity (per hour) gap between Russia and US was approximately threefold, com-paring with European countries – twofold. Sectoral productivity analysis shows that such a differences in some industries are even greater: up to 4 times in agriculture and transportation comparing with US and 13.5 times in mining and energy sectors (C+E I.S.I.C.) comparing with Norway. Such productivity gaps are the evidence of technological weakness of Russian economy, but also it implies the possibility of catching up by means of technology borrowing. Perspective sources for technology borrowing are identified for Russia`s industries.