200-2-900
A bias to small firms is costly. The productivity of European firms with fewer than 20 workers is on average little more than half that of firms with 250 or more workers (see right-hand chart). The deeper roots of the euro-zone crisis lie with the loss of competitiveness in the region’s trouble spots. This problem owes more to dismal productivity growth in the past decade than to rapid wage inflation. If the best small firms were able to grow bigger, Greece and the rest might solve their competitiveness problems without having to cut wages or leave the euro.
The periphery’s productivity malaise is the result of the rigid rules that govern jobs and goods markets. In theory the key to prosperity is the amount of physical capital and skilled workers in an economy, and how they are combined. But the quality of companies will vary so it matters greatly where—as well as how well and how much—capital and skills are deployed. If restrictive rules mean that resources are trapped in inefficient firms, it leaves the best companies starved of them. The result is sluggish productivity. The Carnegie Mellon economists blame Portugal’s shrinking firms on its employment laws, which are among the strictest in the OECD (though becoming more forgiving) and act as a tax on firm size, because small firms are sheltered from them.

A. 어휘
crisis 위기. lie with ...에 있다, 의 책임이다. competitiveness 경쟁력.
owes ...에 빚을 지고 있다. ... 때문이다. dismal 비참한, 陰散(음산)한, 어두운.
malaise 기분이 언짢음, 불쾌. rigid 硬直(경직)된, 엄격한.
prosperity 번영. vary 다르다, 변하다. matters 중요하다.
deploy 배치하다. restrictive 제한하는, 구속하는. trap 덫에 걸리다, 사로잡히다.
inefficient 비능률적인. starve 굶어 죽다. sluggish 활기가 없는, 나태한.
act as a tax on firm size 회사의 규모에 맞추어서 과세하다.
shelter 보호하다, 피난처.