Edward Prescott, a winner of the Nobel prize for economics, blames these transatlantic differences on tax.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

Edmund Phelps, winner of the 2006 Nobel prize for economics for his work on savings and labour markets, argues that the structural explanation for Europe's slower growth rates masks deeper problems with dynamism.

ECONOMIST: Why can't Europe's economies catch up with America?

The current champion of that idea is Robert Mundell, winner of 1999's Nobel Prize for Economics and a professor at Columbia University who advised the European Union for 30 years, right up through the adoption of the euro in 1999.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Take Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia economics professor, Nobel Prize winner and card-carrying member of the sour punditocracy.

FORBES: Pundits Versus the Market