Countries With the Lowest Productivity (TFP)

Every country with a figure for productivity (TFP), ranked from lowest to highest. The top three are Venezuela, RB (0.0518), Central African Republic (0.198) and Tajikistan (0.21). The middle country of the 120 has 0.627.

What this measures

Total factor productivity level, compared with the US (Penn World Table), in ratio to the US (US = 1). Source: Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen. For this measure, higher is better.

Total factor productivity (TFP) is how much a country produces compared with what its workers, their schooling, and its machines and buildings would be expected to produce. It is the part of GDP that those inputs do not account for, such as better technology or better organisation. The US is set to 1 in every year, so 0.5 means a country gets about half as much output from the same inputs as the US. It is worked out from GDP, capital, the number of workers, their schooling and the labor share, so it is linked to each of them by arithmetic. It is left out of the economy score: being built from GDP, it would turn that score back into GDP per person.

The full ranking

Each country’s latest figure, from 2023–2023. The year beside each value says when it was measured.

More on productivity (TFP)

• Countries With the Highest Productivity (TFP)
• Productivity (TFP) by country: trend over time and what it goes with

Related rankings

• Countries With the Lowest Economic Freedom (Fraser)
• Countries With the Lowest Small Government (Fraser)
• Countries With the Lowest Sound Money (Fraser)
• Countries With the Lowest Freedom to Trade (Fraser)
• Countries With the Lowest Light Regulation (Fraser)
• Countries With the Lowest Public Social Spending
• Countries With the Lowest Family Benefits Spending
• Countries With the Lowest Old-age Spending

A ranking describes countries, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All country rankings.