B RITAIN’S DEFINING economic problem since the financial crisis has been lacklustre productivity growth. Between 1950 and 2007 productivity grew at an average pace of 2.5% a year. From 2010 to 2016 it averaged only 0.2%. This gloomy observation is often paired with another: that labour productivity is much lower in Britain than in other rich countries. French workers, it is said, can produce in four days what it takes Brits a full working week to churn out. But such comparisons are now in question after researchers from the OECD , a rich-country club, closely examined the data.

Labour productivity is calculated by dividing output, which can be measured accurately, by hours worked, which are harder to track. Britain’s Office for National Statistics asks people how much they have worked and more or less leaves it at that. Many other countries make all sorts of adjustments to survey responses, to account for workers’ tendency to underestimate how much holiday they take, for example. Those adjustments can reduce measures of hours worked—France, for instance, marks down employees’ reported hours by nearly 20%—boosting apparent productivity.