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An MBendi Travel Profile: Switzerland - Travel Advertise on MBendi Travel Search our directories for: - Accommodation - Airlines - Airports - Attractions - Car Rentals - Countries - Embassies - Event Venues - Events - Health Centres - Hotel Groups - Places - Publications - Restaurants - Tourist Bureaux - Travel Companies - Travel Specials - Travel Tips Tell us about your favourite: - Accommodation - Attraction - Event Venue - Restaurant - Travel Tips More ... - MBendi Travel - MBendi Business - About MBendi - Contact us Switzerland - Travel General Information Places to Visit Travel Facilities MBendi Travel Directories Note to Travel Organisations More For This Country: - Tourism Industry ______________________________ Regions: ------------------------------------------ Country List ------------------------------------------ World Africa Antarctica Asia Australasia Europe North America South America ______________________________ General Information Time Zone: GMT+1h00 ISO Code: CH Dialing Code: +41 Continent: Europe Places to Visit Geneva , Montreux , Zurich , Lucerne :[ View All ] Travel Facilities Accommodation (4) : Hotel Intercontinental , Mandarin Oriental du Rhone , Montreux Palace Hotel , President Wilson Hotel Attractions : Lake Lucerne Event Venues (7) : Hotel Intercontinental , Mandarin Oriental du Rhone , Messe Zurich , Montreux Palace Hotel , Orgexpo-Palexpo Exhibition & Congress Centre , Palexpo Conference Centre , President Wilson Hotel Transport (3) : Basel Port , Geneve Port , Zurich Port MBendi Travel Directories The MBendi Travel website provides some of the most comprehensive information on African travel and tourism anywhere on the Internet. With your help, we would also like to make it one of the best sources of information on travel to Switzerland ! MBendi Travel's directory of Tourist Attractions includes places to visit on each continent. If you find we've missed one of your own personal favourites, you can record the details on our website so others can share your pleasure. You can even E-mail us some of your holiday photographs , the best of which we will display on our website, with your ownership clearly attributed, or share your experiences of visiting some special spot by adding a glowing description through our website. While we provide information on somewhere to stay in every African country we are keen to know about similar places in Switzerland and you can help other travellers by recording those details on our website. You can also give your favourite restaurants, at home or abroad, some free publicity by recording their details on our website. But first search the Accommodation or Restaurants directory to make sure some other fan has not already listed your special favourites. We also provide a Directory of Places so that you can see information you need tourist- or business-wise related a specific city, town or village. Again you can expect this directory of places to grow as new information is added to our other directories. You can use MBendi's directory of Event Venues to find the ideal place for your conference or exhibition, large or small, while MBendi's directory of Events provides one of the most comprehensive lists of public conferences and events anywhere on the Internet. If you are the manager of a venue or the organiser of a public event which is not recorded in our directories, then please submit their details via our website after first checking to ensure they are not already there. If you're an experienced traveller, you might like to use MBendi's Travel Tips section to share your special lore, while if you're a novice traveller, you could use MBendi's directory of Travel Organisations to find everything from tourist bureaux to event organisers ready to assist. In our directory of Publications , we are also compiling details of travel guides and other publications. If you're planning to visit Switzerland on business, we also encourage you to refer to MBendi's business and industry profiles for Switzerland. Note to Travel Organisations Travel organisations are particularly encouraged to ensure the MBendi Travel directories are comprehensive, current and correct as your businesses can only prosper from an increase in tourist numbers. MBendi's Business Opportunities section has details of leisure properties for sale, while the Employment Space includes job vacancies in the industry. Map of Switzerland Geneva Waterfront Information Source: MBendi - Modified: 08.Mar.2004 [ Home Page ] [ About MBendi ] [ Contact MBendi ] [ Policy ] [ Legal Disclaimer ] Users of the MBendi Travel website are assumed to have read and agreed to our terms and conditions © 1995-2005 , MBendi and its associated information providers

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Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis - The Region - European Vacation (December 2003) I'm at: Home > Publications > The Region > December 2003 > Article Publications Expand All Collapse All The Region Index by Issue Interviews President's Columns fedgazette Index by Issue Topics Index Annual Report Quarterly Review Community Dividend Banking and Policy Studies Articles Toolbox ( advanced search ) December 2003 European Vacation There's a simple reason Americans work longer hours than Europeans, says economist Ed Prescott. And it isn't what you think Douglas Clement Editor It's no secret that Europeans work less than Americans do. Every Labor Day the media tell us that Europeans have just enjoyed weeks of summer vacation while Americans have been toiling away. These stories often depict Americans as hard-working drones who revere material possessions above all else. Europeans meanwhile bask in the good life of long lunches and months at the beach. There is some truth to the portrayal, at least in terms of hours worked. The International Labor Organization reports that the average American worked 1,815 hours in 2002, well above the comparable figures for France (1,545) and Germany (1,444), for example. (The average South Korean, on the other hand, worked over 2,400 hours.) But if it's widely acknowledged that Americans work more hours than Europeans, it remains a puzzle quite why there's such a large difference. With similar economies and social structures—at least relative to the rest of the world—it would seem that labor patterns should also be alike. Social scientists have been hard-pressed to explain the disparity. Most accounts focus on cultural explanations. The most popular is the notion that Europeans have a fuller appreciation of la dolce vita —the sweet life—the Italian version of the idea that life is to be enjoyed, not endured. Work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The idea of cultural and religious influences on economic activity isn't new. German sociologist Max Weber wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism nearly a century ago, attributing the rise of capitalist economies to the “Protestant work ethic.” It was an immensely persuasive theory in its time, and derivative explanations have held great sway ever since. “Why do Europeans and Americans differ so much in their attitude toward work and leisure? I can think of two reasons,” opines a recent Time magazine essay. “Broadly speaking, Americans value stuff—SUVs, 7,000-sq.-ft. houses—more than they value time, while for Europeans it's the opposite. Second, ... in the puritanical version of Christianity that has always appealed to Americans, religion comes packaged with the stern message that hard work is good for the soul. Modern Europe has avoided so melancholy a lesson.” “It all comes down to what people feel is important and how they feel about their lives,” argues a September 2003 U.S. News & World Report editorial. “We value more money and more stuff; they value more leisure time. ... We are proud of being busy—it is a virtue; being idle is perceived as a vice.” Economic explanations Economists have always been suspect of such cultural explanations. Standard economic theory assumes that people's preferences are, on average, homogeneous, and that choices depend largely on economic factors. Still, while economists agree that dollars and cents lie behind the work pattern differential, there is little harmony among them as to the right economic explanation. Some economists say work regulations keep Europeans from working longer hours and point favorably to recent European reforms on vacation time. Others argue that greater inequality in the United States motivates workers to try harder to get ahead. Most of these explanations come from the perspective of labor economics and its core belief that social structures and institutions such as unions are the major determinants of labor patterns. But in a recent series of papers and lectures, Edward C. Prescott, senior monetary adviser to the Minneapolis Fed and economist at Arizona State University, looks at the labor supply question through the prism of the growth model—a different perspective altogether—and provides a convincing and remarkably straightforward explanation for the dramatic differences in hours worked. It is an explanation that has far-reaching implications for policymakers—and for anyone else who's ever received a paycheck. According to Prescott, the reason for these large differences in labor supply is not culture. “French, Japanese, and U.S. workers all have similar preferences,” he writes. “The French are not better at enjoying leisure. The Japanese are not compulsive savers.” The reason for the wide range in working hours is, in a word, taxes. Europeans supply less labor because there's a much larger wedge in most European countries between what a worker is paid and what that worker actually gets to keep after taxes are taken out. This tax wedge, argues Prescott, distorts the trade-off people make between consumption and leisure by making consumption more expensive. And since people work, ultimately, to earn money to pay for consumption goods, they'll supply less labor if consumption goods become relatively more expensive. The cheaper alternative: leisure. Hello, Riviera. If the concept seems straightforward, its evolution was anything but. Like most ideas that seem obvious in retrospect, the awareness that taxes distort labor markets dramatically and account for major international differences in work patterns came about indirectly and as a revelation to those who happened upon it. The discovery Prescott's discovery about the role of taxes in labor supply variation began, simply enough, in his classroom at the University of Minnesota, where he taught from 1980 to 2003. “I was making up exercises for my students,” he recalled in a recent interview. “I said, 'use this nice little growth model.'” The “nice little model” he presented to his students is the workhorse of modern macroeconomics; it says, mathematically, that a nation's total output (or gross domestic product, GDP) is dependent on three sources: labor, capital and the efficiency (or productivity) with which it merges them to create economic value. The other key part of this standard theory is, in the jargon of economics, a utility function: a formula representing the notion that households try to maximize their happiness by finding the best possible combination of leisure and consumption, given their resources. Prescott wanted his students to become familiar with this model by looking at how it performed in different nations over time, and how key variables—capital endowments, productivity, labor supply—could account for differences among nations in per capita GDP. “I wanted to try to get across the basic ideas and the importance of productivity,” said Prescott. “And then I thought, let's put a few taxes in.” The intuition was far more significant than Prescott suspected, but that became clear only after looking at the relative contributions of capital, productivity and labor. The data, compiled by the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, showed that in the mid-1990s among developed countries—the United States, much of Europe and Japan—relative levels of capital differ little and explain just a small portion of the variation in per capita GDP (see adjacent table). “The capital factor is not an important factor in accounting for differences in incomes across the OECD countries,” writes Prescott in his 2002 Richard T. Ely Lecture to the American Economic Association. “[It] contributes at most 8 percent to the differences in income between any of these countries.” Capital, Labor, Productivity and GDP 1993-96 Country Capital/ Output Ratio (1990) Hours worked per Week per Person 15-64 Productivity: GDP per hour Worked; US=100 GDP per Person 15-64; US=100 Germany 2.7 19.3 99 74 France 2.2 17.5 110 74 Italy 2.6 16.5 90 57 Canada na 22.9 89 79 United Kingdom 2.6 22.8 76 67 Japan 2.5 27.0 74 78 United States 2.3 25.9 100 100 Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department Staff Report 321 and Working Paper 618 . Productivity, on the other hand, is very important, at least for some national differences. Japan and the United States, for example, have similar levels of labor and capital, but per capita GDP in Japan is far below that in the United States because its productivity is less than three-quarters that of the United States. But what of European countries like France, Italy and Germany? Why are their levels of per capita GDP so much lower? All these nations have capital endowments comparable to the United States. Their productivity levels also are similar to U.S. rates, or in the case of France, even higher. The data suggest that the differences in wealth are due almost exclusively to the markedly lower number of hours worked in these European countries. Germany, for instance, had a slightly higher capital endowment than the United States and an equal level of productivity, but just 74 percent of the U.S. per capita GDP. The evident reason: Its workers supplied just over 19 hours of labor per week compared to nearly 26 hours a week per American worker. While many believe that cultural differences lead to fewer hours worked in Europe than in the United States, Prescott doubts it. After all, data from the early 1970s show that the French actually worked more hours per week than did Americans at that time. Has French culture changed radically over the last two decades? Probably not: They still like good wine, aged cheese and, inexplicably, Jerry Lewis. Prescott's hunch was that differences in marginal tax rates might explain the differences in labor supplied and thus account for differences in per capita GDP. Enter the tax wedge “What is important is the price of consumption relative to leisure,” Prescott writes in the lecture he gave in April 2003 as he accepted Northwestern University's prestigious Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics. “And it is determined by the consumption tax rate and the labor income tax rate.” (See the lecture, “ Why Do Americans Work So Much More Than Europeans? ”) By introducing these taxes into the growth model, and making standard microeconomic assumptions, Prescott derived what he calls “the key equilibrium relation.” 1 It's a mathematical formula for labor supply that says workers will supply labor dependent on, among other things, their preference for consumption now over consumption later (spend or save?), their preference for leisure relative to consumption (play or work?) and the effective tax rate. Holding the first two variables fixed and looking empirically at different national tax rates enables Prescott to see if tax differences can account, fully or partially, for variations in labor hours supplied. Estimating the effective tax rates in these countries was, in itself, a major accounting exercise. Consumption taxes include value-added taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes and property taxes. Labor is subject to both income taxes and Social Security taxes. For each nation under consideration, Prescott and his students crunched the numbers, determined a tax rate, plugged it into the formula along with fixed estimates of the other variables, and derived predictions of labor hours supplied per week per worker. How good were the predictions? Dead-on for Germany and the United Kingdom, a bit low for Canada and the United States, and a bit high for the other countries (see table below). Given measurement inaccuracies, the rough nature of the tax-rate estimates and the difficulty of international comparisons, writes Prescott, the model's predictions were “surprisingly close to the actual.” Tax Rates and Labor Supply 1993-96 Country Tax Rate (percent) Actual Hours Worked per Week per Person 15-64 Predicted Hours Worked per Week per Person 15-64 Difference (Predicted Minus Actual) Germany 59 19.3 19.5 0.2 France 59 17.5 19.5 2.0 Italy 64 16.5 18.8 2.3 Canada 52 22.9 21.3 -1.6 United Kingdom 44 22.8 22.8 0.0 Japan 37 27.0 29.0 2.0 United States 40 25.9 24.6 -1.3 Source: “ Why Do Americans Work So Much More Than Europeans ?” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department Staff Report 321. Here, notes Prescott, “the important observation is that the low labor supplies in Germany, France and Italy are due to high tax rates. In these countries if someone works more and produces 100 additional euros of output, that individual gets to consume only 40 euros of additional consumption and pays directly or indirectly 60 euros in taxes.” Put in such stark terms, it seems obvious that many Europeans might opt to work less, while Americans and Japanese, taxed more lightly, would be keen to put in extra hours. Confirmation and implications Prescott found further confirmation for his hypothesis when he looked at tax rates and labor supply in the early 1970s (see table below). While his model's predictions of labor hours supplied diverge from the actual in several cases—Italy and Japan, in particular—Prescott observes that “when European and U.S. tax rates were comparable, European and U.S. labor supplies were roughly equal.” Tax Rates and Labor Supply 1970-74 Country Tax Rate (percent) Actual Hours Worked per Week per Person 15-64 Predicted Hours Worked per Week per Person 15-64 Difference (Predicted Minus Actual) Germany 52 24.6 24.6 0.0 France 49 24.4 25.4 1.0 Italy 41 19.2 28.3 9.1 Canada 44 22.2 25.6 3.4 United Kingdom 45 25.9 24.0 -1.9 Japan 25 29.8 35.8 6.0 United States 40 23.5 26.4 2.9 Source: “ Why Do Americans Work So Much More Than Europeans ?” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department Staff Report 321. As for the outliers, Italy and Japan, Prescott suggests that other factors may be significant. In Italy, cartels may have played a role in depressing labor supply below its predicted value. In Japan, significant measurement errors in actual hours worked could account for the overly high prediction by the model. And what seems another anomaly is very likely an indirect confirmation of the importance of marginal tax rates on labor supply, according to Prescott. In the United States, actual hours worked per person increased by 10 percent from the 1970s to the 1990s, though the marginal tax rate remained at 40 percent. Prescott argues that U.S. tax reforms in the 1980s changed the effective marginal tax faced by married couples—dropping the rate in half for the second earner's income—even though it remained nominally at 40 percent. “In the 1993-96 [period],” he writes, “the marginal income tax on the labor income associated with switching between a one-earner and a two-earner household is only 20 percent, not 40 percent.” The issue warrants more attention, he says, and indeed, his colleagues Larry Jones, Rodolfo Manuelli and Ellen McGrattan have recently released a paper on this exact question. (See “ Wives at Work .”) On the whole, Prescott states, the results show that “people are remarkably similar across countries” and not only for these relatively prosperous and homogeneous nations, but for Chile, Mexico and Argentina, as well, where other economists have found similar relationships. “Apparently, idiosyncratic preference differences average out and result in the [representative] household having almost identical preferences across countries.” The policy implications are enormous for high-tax countries. If France were to lower its effective tax rate from 60 percent to 40 percent, estimates Prescott, its people would work more (taking 6.6 percent less leisure) and—remember their high productivity?—would generate considerably more output. Tax revenues wouldn't diminish, because the 40 percent rate would be levied on a higher base. And overall French “welfare gains,” as economists put it, would increase nearly 20 percent. In the United States, reducing marginal tax rates would have a more modest impact, according to the model: A 10 percent rate reduction would produce a 7 percent welfare gain. But even in the United States, Prescott's findings have huge implications for the viability of the Social Security system. (See “ Shrinking a deadweight loss .”) Foreign affairs In recent months, Prescott has traveled widely, presenting his findings not only to American audiences but to economists and policymakers in London, Berlin, Toulouse, Tokyo and elsewhere overseas. And in fact, says Prescott, Europeans tend to be more receptive than Americans. “The economists there understand that there is a problem,” he said after returning from France in mid-September. “I got some excellent suggestions when I presented the paper, the best so far.” But at all venues, he observes, the common denominator is surprise. Prescott is the first to admit that he, too, thought the results were startling, unexpected. “I find it remarkable that virtually all of the large difference in labor supply between France and the United States is due to differences in tax systems,” he writes in his Ely lecture. “I expected institutional constraints on the operation of labor markets and the nature of the unemployment benefit system to be more important.” Moreover, he concedes that cultural explanations might carry the day in a few settings. “Scandinavians seem to be a little bit different,” he said recently, referring to research by Richard Rogerson, an economist at Arizona State University. “My theory is when one of those Swedes looks at you when you're not working, it's pretty intimidating.” More seriously, he allows that in small, homogeneous cultures, social pressures can be quite strong. But even in large, heterogeneous nations, tax wedges don't always tell the whole story, according to Prescott. “Taxes are not the only reason that the labor factors differ,” says Prescott's Ely lecture. Unemployment benefits and housing subsidies—not taxes—distorted labor mobility in the United Kingdom between the first and second World Wars, contributing significantly to that country's interwar depression. New Deal policies supporting cartels in America's heavy industries distorted wages and employment in the last half of the 1930s, contributing to the depth and duration of the Great Depression in the United States. Similarly, cartels in 1970s Italy may have suppressed employment there. Prescott relies on work by University of California, Los Angeles economists Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian in making these conjectures. Still, while taxes aren't the all-powerful explanatory factor for all nations and eras, Prescott contends that in major developed countries in the time period under consideration, the labor supply impact of tax wedges is a powerful and undeniable fact. Other academics As befits the work of any prominent scholar, Prescott's theory has attracted close academic scrutiny—beyond the initial reaction of surprise—from both adherents and critics. In one recent paper, Peter Lindert, an economist at the University of California, Davis, refers to Prescott's study as dependent upon “a theoretical model heavily laden with assumptions. It is educated, intelligent, plausible fiction—but fiction nonetheless.” On the other hand (as Lindert points out) Prescott's model and findings are cited quite favorably by Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas in his 2003 presidential address to the American Economic Association. Lindert calls for empirical tests. Steven Davis at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and Magnus Henrekson of the Stockholm School of Economics oblige with a careful econometric analysis of the impact of labor income and consumption taxes on employment and work activity. In their study of rich countries in the mid-1990s, they find that a 12.8 percentage point difference in tax rates is associated with 122 fewer market work hours per adult per year and nearly a 5 percentage point decrease in employment—population ratios—an indirect affirmation of Prescott's theory. A very different perspective was presented earlier this year in a series of lectures by British economist Richard Layard, co-director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. Layard takes issue with GDP itself as a satisfactory measure of human welfare—or utility, as Jeremy Bentham and subsequent economists have termed it—noting that “happiness has not increased, despite huge increases in living standards.” To summarize a lengthy argument, Layard's idea is that a tax wedge on labor income could actually increase utility by decreasing a sort of pollution: overwork brought on by the inherent human desire to do better than our peers, regardless of our absolute level of income. Keeping up with the Joneses, in other words, leads to overwork, ill health and unhappiness—rivalry distorts the leisure/labor decision. Appropriate public policy should diminish this pollution by taxing it. “In an efficient economy,” Layard writes, “there will be substantial levels of corrective taxation ... 60 percent would not seem inappropriate, and that is in fact the typical level of marginal taxation in Europe—if you allow for direct and indirect taxes.” Prescott responds Prescott's reactions to these ideas vary widely. Sitting in his seventh-floor office at the Minneapolis Fed, he reads through the first pages of Lindert's paper, then drops it on his desk. “It doesn't seem to be coherent,” he says. Davis and Henrekson's study, on the other hand, intrigues him. That might seem predictable given its broad support of Prescott's findings, but Davis and Henrekson employ a technique Prescott generally scorns: statistical regression. “Progress, don't regress,” he says with a smile, quoting the slogan featured prominently on his Internet home page. Regardless of their method, Prescott is drawn to the findings and has invited Davis to Minneapolis to get a closer look at their work. But Prescott's response to Layard's argument—more complete and nuanced—conveys a sense of Prescott himself. He begins by summarizing Layard's case in a phrase: “I'm happy if I have a lot more income—than you,” he says, grinning and quite aware that he does. As to the overwork such rivalry might cause, “that just says there's a consumption externality.” Then he conveys the concept with a story. “I always tried to create a positive externality in Pittsburgh for my neighbors who had these beautiful lawns,” he jokes of his grad school days at Carnegie Mellon University. “By my having a messy lawn, their lawns looked so much better. I mowed it, but I didn't do much else with my lawn. And it gave me utility to see them happier.” He tells the story with a verbal wink, acknowledging silently that his Pittsburgh yard care externality may well have been less than zero. The conspiratorial smile changes to professorial zeal as he begins to dissect Layard's reasoning: “Suppose everybody cares about relative consumption as well as own consumption. You work out the equilibrium, it's not Pareto optimal. Let's deal with the case where everybody enters symmetrically. So it's simple to make the ordering. Well, you can make everybody better off by just putting a tax on consumption so that they work less. That's a very standard model. Now what would be the empirical evidence for and against that?” In under five minutes, Prescott has crystallized an argument, communicated it to a visitor in plain language and personal anecdote, then converted it to the idiom of economics and laid out steps for its confirmation or refutation. It's vintage Prescott: analytically brilliant, unexpectedly funny and several beats ahead of everyone else. That last bit is the essence of a conversation with the economist. When you ask him a question, it sometimes seems that his reply is off-topic; then it dawns on you that Ed Prescott is answering the question you should have asked. A pattern of surprise Prescott's willingness to entertain alternatives, to listen to critics, to incorporate the unexpected is deeply characteristic of his work. That flexibility is, in fact, the paradoxical outcome of a rigid research discipline. In setting model parameters, for instance, or reporting research results, “the investigator has no degrees of freedom,” he says. “You have to tie your hands and if there's a deviation from your predictions, you report it. You can speculate on why, but you've got to be totally honest.” Intellectual honesty also means allowing findings to modify, even subvert initial hypotheses. It happens frequently, says Prescott. Much of the work for which he's best known—theories on time inconsistency, real business cycles, the equity premium and growth theory—has been developed in an ongoing process of research and revelation. “When I work out the implications, I'm quite often surprised: The findings change my views quite dramatically,” he says. “When I did the real business cycles work with Finn Kydland, I was certain that monetary shocks were the reason the economy fluctuated with the business cycles. Our findings were just the opposite. When I did some work with Rajnish Mehra on the equity premium puzzle, I was certain that the reason for the high historical difference in the return on equity relative to debt was just a premium for bearing aggregate, nondiversifiable risk. We found it wasn't.” For time inconsistency and the impact of taxes on labor supply, as well, surprise has been an intrinsic part of the process. Future direction As striking as his labor supply findings are—and though many aspects of it remain unresolved—Prescott senses that the big theoretical questions in economic growth lie elsewhere, and he is now turning his attention to them. “I think I've had my say on labor supply,” he concludes. In his Ely lecture, he lays out three sources of economic growth: capital, labor and productivity. The first two are important in understanding why some nations remain poor while others prosper, but the central question, contends Prescott, is what determines productivity? “Given productivity, our macro models are great,” he says. “But we treat it as exogenous. We've got to have a better understanding of mapping between policies and productivity.” In other words, what can governments do to enhance productivity? Prescott's main candidates are efficient financial markets, competition among producers and trading clubs. And currently, the last is his major focus. “What is a trading club?” he asks rhetorically. “Well, first, free movement of goods between the member states. But it's much, much more than that. ...” Prescott continues at length, with a discourse ranging from Toyota factories in Wales to trade among the U.S. states in the 19th century. He speaks quickly, and as he does there is a sense that each research question he asks leads him to a dozen more, each more interesting than the last. He will travel soon to Warsaw and then Bogotá to explore these ideas with other economists and policymakers. “It's going to be fascinating to see what's happening in Poland,” he remarks. In Colombia, “the president is trying to do some good things there, and we have to go down and help out.” He's not a policymaker himself. “I leave that to other people,” he says. “I'm no good at it. My comparative advantage is working out implications of theory.” And in so doing, it seems there is just one constraint: Even for Ed Prescott, a scholar who understands labor supply dynamics as well as anyone on earth, there are only 24 hours in a day. “Time,” observes the economist, “is the most valuable resource.” 1 The two assumptions: (1) that people decide between leisure and consumption based on their relative prices, at the margin, and (2) that in a competitive market, wages are equal to their marginal product of labor. The “key equilibrium relation” also depends on the share of a nation's output due to capital. Top of document Advanced Search Glossary See also: Shrinking a deadweight loss

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Guaranteed Lowest Rates. http://www.hotels-downtown-chicago.com City Perfect Hotels Rapid Hotel Search and some of the best rates on the Internet - guaranteed. Easy Online Booking. http://www.cityperfect.com Comox Valley Vancouver Island Bed and Breakfast B&B and vacation rental accommodations on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada http://www.bed-breakfast-vancouver-island.com Cotococha Amazon Lodge - Ecuador - Jungle Tours Live Amazon Life in style! All inclusive packages, excursions, rafting and much more.. http://www.cotococha.com Directory of Bahamas vacation rental homes Privately owned vacation rental homes directory http://www.getawaybahamas.com Dominican Republic Hotels - Information and reservations. Explore our collection of Dominican Republic hotels. Book online your Dominican Republic hotels. http://www.hotel-dominicanrepublic.com fabvillas.com - Florida Villa Rentals Specialists in providing superior quality attraction area vacation homes. http://www.fabvillas.com Florida Holiday villa Florida Holiday villa in Sunridge Woods Orlando close to Disney and Kissimmee, Golf at Champions Gate, Universal Studios and Sea World. Self catering vacation accommodation. http://www.1stfloridahome.com Florida Keys Vacation Rentals Florida Keys vacation property listings in the Florida Keys and the Lower Keys. http://www.keystothesearealty.com/ Florida Vacation Homes & Vacation Rentals Vacation rentals and Florida vacation homes, Orlando villas, condos, and holiday villas near Disney World. Luxury Florida vacation rentals at hotel prices and vacation specials. http://www.sunshine-magic.com Florida vacation rentals, direct from the owner Browse our online directory of Florida vacation rentals and villas, booking direct with the owner can save you money. Many luxury homes to choose from. http://www.villas2000.com Florida vacation villa, Orlando luxury 4 bedrm, 3 bathrm, near Disney Beautiful private villa, sleeps 10(max)2 master bedrooms both with en-suite, ideal for two families. 28ft screened pool, easy access to all attractions. http://www.tivoli-villa-florida.co.uk Florida villas villas for rent in the sunshine state of Florida http://www.villas-spain-rentals.com/florida/ Florida villas to Rent A great resource for finding that perfect Florida villa to rent, direct from the owners. http://www.villas-to-rent-in-florida.co.uk Florida Villas with Worldwide Holiday Homes Wide range of Florida villas and condos in the Sunshine state of Florida. Book direct with the owner. http://www.holiday-rentals.uk.com/florida-villas.html Fripp Island Vacation Rental The beach is 80 feet away and the pool is just outside your door. Great pool and ocean view from the upstairs balcony and patio. Enjoy the beach and swimming pool, riding the bikes, seeing the deer and dolphins, birds, and other wildlife. http://www.FrippIslandVilla.com Global timeshare solutions Florida's Dream Vacation Marketing Firm, Global Timeshare Solutions is a dominating force in the vacation ownership business. Whether you're buying, renting, or selling your timeshare, we can facilitate all your needs. Global Timeshare Solutions has a dedicated marketing and sales team with over 100 years of combined experience. http://www.globaltimesharesolutions.com/index.php Hawaii Beach Vacation Rental Sea Mountain Resort overlooks the Pacific Ocean and is within walking distance of Punalu'u Black Sand Beach, #3 of the Top Ten Hawaiian Beaches. http://hawaii-beach-vacation.us Hawaii Beach Vacation Rental, Oahu Our Hawaii Beach Vacation Rental location is ideal: the beautiful white, powdery sands of Waimanalo Beach are a 100 yards away. http://vacation-rental.name HolidaysOrlando Orlando Villas to rent 5 bedroom with pool and games room less than 15 minutes from Disney. http://www.holidaysorlando.eu.com Hotels in Las Vegas Las Vegas hotel booking services at cheaper rates that suit your budget. http://www.luckylasvegashotels.com Magical Destinations Orlando! - Vacation Home Rentals Near Disney World Florida vacation homes rentals near Disney World. We offer fully furnished luxury vacation pool homes at great rates. Book yours today! http://www.magicaldestinationsorlando.com Midtown Apartments, Buenos Aires, Argentina Fully equipped and furnished apartments for short term rental in Buenos Aires. Ideal for tourists and travellers. http://www.midtownba.com.ar/ Nanaimo Vancouver Island Bed and Breakfast B&B and vacation rental accommodations on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada http://www.nanaimo-bed-breakfast.com Orlando Florida Vacation Villa Rental Five bedroom, four bathroom villa available to rent. Private pool. Air conditioning. Close to all attractions http://www.orangeblossomvillas.com Orlando Vacation Holiday Homes Villas, Condos, Houses, Accommodation, to rent near Walth Disney World and Universal Studios http://www.milkriver.co.uk Orlando4Villas - Florida Villa Rentals Find Orlando Villas near disney-Rent Florida Holiday Homes 3-7 bedrooms,visit orlando4villas first. http://www.orlando4villas.com Peru Lima Hotels - Basadre Suites Hotel San Isidro Lima Peru 3 Stars Peru Lima Hotel Located in San Isidro The Attractive Business And Residential district of Lima. If you are looking for a good Lodging. Ask for Online Reservations Now. http://www.hotelbasadre.com Relax In Rentals - The Vacation Rental By Owner Community View the finest vacation rentals in North America. From beach houses and bungalows in Hawaii and Florida to Spectacular cabins in Alaska. http://www.relaxinrentals.com Romantic Santa Cruz Bed and Breakfast Inn A perfect bed and breakfast retreat in the heart of the historic district. Downtown Santa Cruz, California. http://www.adobeongreen.com Sosua vacation rentals / Dominican Republic Vacation apartments and villas between Sosua and Cabarete at the dominican northcoast in gated comminity for rent. http://www.sosuarentals.com/ Southern Palms Orlando vacation villa where you can enjoy the holiday of a lifetime, close to all major attractions http://www.southern-palms.com Taylor Hotel - Budget Hotel in San Francisco Budget hotel near Union Square offers online hotel reservations, cheap accommodations at discount rates for value oriented travelers and student. http://www.sanfrancisco-budgethotel.com/ Tigligli guadeloupe vacation rental FWI Bungalows rentals in Guadeloupe located at Bouillante by the tropical forest of the national Park. Natural scuba diving reserve.H andicap accessible. http://www.tigligli.com Villas in St Lucia, Caribbean Private villa or apartment to suit every need. The local beach, shops, bars and restaurants are only a short walk away. http://www.villasinstlucia.com Villas Near Disney World Orlando Florida Luxury villas near Disney World, Orlando Florida. Private pool, just minutes from theme parks http://www.ownersinflorida.com Whistler Ski Accommodation Offers a wide variety of ski accommodation in Whistler, BC, North America's #1 ski resort http://www.holidaywhistler.com Windward International Corporation Travel Management company specializing in meetings and incentives, corporate events and conferences. http://www.gowindward.com Add your site OVER 50s ADVERTISING | PRIVACY | Ts & Cs | SITEMAP | ADD YOUR URL | CONTACT Seniority.co.uk Ltd. The UK's favourite over 50s website. All rights reserved

Spain Travel Resources Map

Spain Map - Map of Spain and Travel Resources  You are here: About > Travel > Europe for Visitors > European Travel Maps > Maps of Spain > Spain Map - Map of Spain and Travel Resources Travel Go Europe Essentials European Vacation Planning Map Europe Travel 101 - Before you Go European Distances The Best of Europe European Photo Gallery Articles & Resources Europe Travel Planning What to do In Europe Lodging - Hotels and More European Travel Maps Sex and Nudism Travel Photography Transportation Benelux Countries France Germany Austria Switzerland Greece Italy and Malta Travel Info Scandinavian Travel Spain and Portugal United Kingdom and Ireland Buyer's Guide Before You Buy Top Picks Italy Travel Guidebooks Europe Travel Guidebooks German Travel Guidebooks Product Reviews Forums Help FREE Newsletter Sign Up Now for the Europe for Visitors newsletter! See Online Courses   Search Europe for Visitors Spain Map and Travel Essentials Information you need to know about visiting Spain You are Here Home Europe Map Map of Spain and Travel Resources Spain Map - Spain Travel Resources Map of Spain © 2003 by James Martin, licensed to About (Map Notes: Spanish Cities in brown have detailed travel information on this site. Cities on the map which have link categories to tourism information are in black.) Destinations in Spain Asturias and Cantabria Asturias and Cantabria -Map and Guide to Spain's Undiscovered North Coast - Prehistoric Cave Country. Barcelona, Spain Barcelona City Profile Merida, Spain Merida Travel Planner - great Roman ruinsand tapas on the route between Lisbon and Madrid. Pamplona, Spain (Basque Country) PamplonaSpain and the Running of the Bulls Peñafiel, Spain Peñafiel Spain and the Ribera del Duero Wine Region - See one of Spain's mostinteresting castle. Salamanca, Spain Salamanca Travel Essentials and City Profile - Salamanca is one of my favorite cities featuring a fantasticPlaza Major. Segovia, Spain Segovia Travel Planer interesting citymakes a great day trip from Madrid. Tarragona, Spain Tarragona Spain Visitors Guide - Near enough to Barcelona to make either city aday trip. For more destinations in Spain, see: Madrid Travel Guide Spain Travel Directory Cities and Islands of Spain Travel Directory Maps of Spain Spain Regional Map - a map showing the regions of Spain and resources for that region. Good for choosing a general destination rather than a city or for learning more about Spain.. Spain - Rail Map showing major Spanish cities on the rail lines. You'll alsofind information links to pertinent train information. A Traveler's Geography of Spain - Map and Resources Find out about the Geography of Spain as well as intersting travel destinations emphasizing the natural history of Spain. Spain in Pictures Spain Picture Gallery Barcelona, Spain Picture Gallery Spain - Weather Spain enjoys a moderate climate. In Bilbao, for example, the average temperature varies from 49 degrees F in January to 70 in August. For an overview of temperaturesthroughout the year in some of Spain's cities, see GeographyIQ . For current Spanish Weather, see the Weather Underground . Spain - Transportation Spain is served by an extensive rail system. See our railmap for the major routes and train information. There is no national bus service in Spain. Many small cities in Spain have access to the larger cities through a local bus system. Routes and Timetables for the local busses are found at bus stations and stops. You can buy a ticket on the bus or in advance from tobacco shops (estancos). The two largest Bus companies serving Spain are Autocares Julia and Eurolines . Spain - Eating in Spanish Restaurants In the summer,Spanish eating habits can be dauntingfor the tourist, especially one just arriving from overseas. Lunch and dinner are served later here than in the rest of Europe, restaurants often opening as late as 3pm for lunch and 8 or 9pm for dinner. Many restaurants in metropolitan areas have started to cater to the overseas crowd and offer continuous opening hours. The traditional remedy for the lateness of meals was to eat small plates called tapas at bars that were open all day, either as a way to keep hunger away until the restaurants opened or to make a whole meal out of appetizers--not a bad wayto go. Bellying up to a Tapas bar is a great way to meet people. Many travelers report not finding enough vegetables in restaurants to keep them happy. This is not the case when you eat meals in people's homes--it's a quirk of the restaurant system. See Eating in Spain for more. Dont expect to find No Smoking sections in restaurants or bars. Tipping in Spanish Restaurants Meals includea service charge, but tipping is common. 10% is a substantial tip. Accommodations in Spain Spain has a wide range of accommodations. There are usually hotels near train stations, somebudget, a few seedy. You may inspect a hotel before committing to it. Hotels in spain are classified by stars according to their facilities and not necessarily their charm. For more on the hotel rating system, see our article: Hotels and their Star Ratings . An excellent glossary of Spanish Accommodation terms is found on John Ross' Spain and Portugal for Visitors Site . Language in Spain The language spoken in Spain is Spanish. However, there are variants spoken that include Euskara, spoken in the basque regions; Catalan, spoken in parts of Spain, Andorra, France and Sardinia; Galician, and other languages. An excellent discussion of these is provided by Gerald Erichsen in his article: Spain'sLinguistic Diversity . Foreign Languages for the Tourist gives a list of resources for learning just enough language to get along. Page two of that article is an account of going to language school in Perugia, Italy. I recommend undertaking such an experience in Spain if you're interested in the Spanish language and people. There is a good list of Spanish Language Schools here . Currency in Spain Spain uses the Euro--Symbol . At the time the Euro came into use, its value was setto 166.386 Spanish Pesetas. [ more on the Euro ] Spain - Siesta! The siesta period is from 1:30 to 4:30. Stores close but restaurants stay open in the lateafternoon, closing usually at 4:30. From James Martin , Your Guide to Europe for Visitors . FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now! Advertisement Most Popular Europe Map - Distances Between Cities in Western Europe Europe's Best Nudist Beaches Europe Picture Galleries Italy Pictures Europe Travel 101 - Before You Travel to Europe for the Firs... 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