Living Standards in the U.S. and Europe are Much Closer than They Appear to Be

If you compare the incomes in Europe and the U.S., it looks like people in Europe are much worse off than people in the U.S., but this could be an illusion according to a a research paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the U.S. written by Charles I. Jones and Peter J. Klenow. The authors state that:

"...living standards in Western Europe are much closer to those in the United States than it would appear from GDP per capita. Longer lives with more leisure time and more equal consumption in Western Europe largely offset their lower average consumption vis a vis the United States."