When productivity is limited by the balance of payments. A reflection on the relationship between center and periphery in the european monetary union from the perspective of sylos labini’s productivity equation

What does the productivity gap between core and peripheral countries in the Eurozone depend on? The article proposes a revisiting of Paolo Sylos Labini’s productivity equation aimed at analyzing the phenomenon of balance of payments constrained growth highlighted by Anthony Thirlwall. The analysis tries to verify whether the trade imbalances between the center and the periphery of the Eurozone are relevant to understand the increasing gap in productivity between the two areas. The results seem to confirm the presence of a foreign technological constraint on the periphery. This constraint exhibits a significant correlation with the productivity gap between the center and the periphery, even after the restructuring of production processes undergone in the peripheral countries.