Intangible factors and productivity: Evidence from Europe at the regional level
This study investigates how a region's labour productivity could be influenced by intangible factors such as social capital, government quality, cultural dimensions andreligion – factors that have not received much attention in the previous literature. As another novelty, regional-level data (78 regions of 22 European countries) were analysed. In order to take into account the relationships between various factors of productivity, the structural equation modelling approach is used enabling to find out both direct and indirect effects. The results showed institutional trust and civic participation to be the most important for productivity. Individualism appeared to have a positive and masculinity and power distance a negative total effect on labourproductivity.