Thanks Henrys.

I looked up the population figures in wikipedia (I'm sure there are better sources). Says 2011 population for Europe is 738mm compared to 528mm for North America - seems that population ratio is 1.4x. This is far smaller than the orders ratio of 2.2x. This is my question - why is there a difference in all aspects, population, gdp, growth rate? So far, there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. My original assumption was size of warehouses, particularly as Europe has more countries and may have more warehouses too - but it doesn't seem like anyone on this forum thinks that is an answer. I think the leasing vs. buying argument has some merit - perhaps it creates some excessive purchasing to oversupply a market need - but I don't think that can explain the sustained 20 years and even 50 year outpacing of Europe vs. N. America (as seen in the NACCO data).