Financial progress and productiveness progress throughout the nations of the European Union has been lagging the US financial system. What are the explanations and what may be finished? A gaggle of essays within the June 2025 subject of Finance & Improvement provides some insights. A standard theme is that EU financial integration has not proceeded as deliberate. In consequence, EU corporations are promoting into smaller nationwide markets, slightly than a continent-wide market, and their incentives to draw finance and to spend money on economies of scale and new applied sciences are accordingly diminished.
The EU has made important progress releasing up commerce between its member states, however loads of obstacles stay. Excessive commerce boundaries inside Europe are equal to an advert valorem value of 44 p.c for manufactured items and 110 p.c for providers, IMF analysis exhibits (2024). These prices are borne by EU shoppers and corporations within the type of much less competitors, increased costs, and decrease productiveness.
The EU can be a good distance from capital market integration, with cross-border flows pissed off by persistent fragmentation alongside nationwide traces. The overall market capitalization of the bloc’s inventory exchanges was about $12 trillion in 2024, or 60 p.c of the GDP of the collaborating nations. By comparability, the 2 largest inventory exchanges within the US had a mixed market capitalization of $60 trillion, or over 200 p.c of home GDP. Restricted EU-level harmonization in essential areas, akin to securities legislation, hampers progress by stopping capital from flowing to the place it’s best.
That is one cause Europe has fallen behind within the adoption of productivity-enhancing applied sciences and its productiveness ranges are low. At present, the EU’s complete issue productiveness is about 20 p.c under the US stage. Decrease productiveness means decrease incomes. Even within the EU’s largest superior economies, per capita earnings is about 30 p.c decrease than the US common (see Chart 1).
Kammer factors out:
Not solely do Europe’s main corporations lag their US opponents, however they’re falling additional behind over time. That is true throughout all sectors, however particularly for tech. Whereas the productiveness of US-listed tech corporations has elevated by about 40 p.c over the previous twenty years, European tech corporations have seen virtually no enchancment. One cause might be that US corporations are merely making an attempt tougher: They’ve tripled their analysis and improvement spending to 12 p.c of gross sales income, thrice European corporations’ ratio, which has languished at a mean of 4 p.c in current many years.
The longer term would look brighter if Europe might hope for younger high-growth corporations to scale back the innovation and productiveness deficit. Alas, the EU has few such corporations. And so they have a considerably smaller financial footprint than these within the US, the place youthful corporations account for a far bigger share of employment. In different phrases, the EU has too many small, previous, and low-growth corporations. A couple of fifth of European workers work in microfirms with 10 folks or fewer, about double the US determine. And whereas the typical European agency that has been in enterprise 25 years or extra employs about 10 staff, comparable US corporations make use of 70 (Chart 2).
Points for the EU could also be particularly acute for younger tech corporations. As Kammer factors out, banks are sometimes the first supply of capital for EU corporations, and banks sometimes wish to lend to corporations with collateral–not an organization primarily based on just a few patents and an concept: “[T]here is a troubling trend of innovative European firms taking their talents to more dynamic markets elsewhere, with future “unicorn” corporations valued at greater than $1 billion leaving the EU for the US at a price that’s 120 occasions sooner than the opposite approach round, in keeping with analysis by Ricardo Reis, of the London College of Economics.”
“The US innovates, China replicates, Europe regulates” is how critics summarize the continent’s method to innovation. Exhibit A of the European Union’s regulatory overreach is the now notorious Synthetic Intelligence Act, which governs AI—although the area has not but produced a single main participant. Productiveness in US know-how corporations has surged practically 40 p.c since 2005 whereas stagnating amongst European corporations, in keeping with IMF analysis. US analysis and improvement spending as a share of gross sales is greater than double what it’s in Europe. No European firm ranks among the many 10 largest tech corporations by market share.
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