U.S. leads the world in worker productivity.

Conventional wisdom has it that the United States lags in world competitiveness behind those manufacturing giants Germany and Japan. Lack of vision, lazy workers, high wages, old fashioned management styles are commonly cited as the culprits.

Recent studies challenge that belief. The consulting firm McKinsey & Company together with three top experts on productivity, including economics Nobel Laureat Robert M. Solow, examined the labor productivity (output per hour worked) in nine manufacturing industries in Germany, Japan and the United States. Using the United States as an index of 100, Japan's worker productivity is 83, Germany's is 79.

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The study found that Japan leads the world in five industries--autos, auto parts, consumer electronics, metal working and steel.

The United States leads in four--computers, processed food, soap and detergent, and beer--and has closed the gap in autos.

Germany leads in no industries, and despite its reputation for excellence in autos and auto parts, it is a distant third in that area and five others. The differences in productivity, according to the report, cannot be explained by differences in the education and health of workers in the three nations, the cost of raw materials, or the...