The Impact of Public Expenditure Efficiency on Labour Productivity in V4 Countries

This paper is focused on the comparison of labour productivity in the four Visegrad countries (the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and Poland). It briefly deals with the measurement of labour productivity on a macroeconomic scale. The main goal of this paper is to compare the development of labour productivity in the four Visegrad countries as related to public expenditures based on labour market policies and average wages. We use linear and nonparametric correlation analyses to quantify the association between the tested variables. To explore associations between variables we also use graphical displays. The results of our analysis on labour productivity show the dependency of the two indicators, namely the labour productivity and average wages. Moreover, no correlation was found between labour productivity and public expenditure on labour market policies for all V4 countries. The outcome for labour market policies expenditure shows in the highest correlation between the Czech Republic and Hungary, but no significant result for other V4 countries. It could be caused by different government strategies on labour policy and non-economic influence.