Productivity research is Canada has traditionally focused on narrow economic issues. In our view, it has given inadequate attention to the broader ramifications of productivity, both in terms of shedding light on the importance of productivity for the advancement of various aspects of social...

In this chapter, Richard Harris points out that a traditional view has been that there is an inherent conflict between economic efficiency and social equality, a view neatly summarized in the title of Okun's famous book, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Trade-off (1975). This view gained renewed...

In an environment where children's time has an economic value and employment opportunities for educated workers are scarce, parental investments in their children's education may not be driven entirely by poverty and credit constraints. We offer evidence that children's participation in child...

Using Finnish panel data, we study how entrepreneurs differ from workers in education and income dynamics. We find that workers have higher median income in all educational groups. Without additional controls, entrepreneurs have higher average income with all but undergraduate level of...

The skills issue is currently at or near the top of the federal government’s policy agenda, given its importance for harnessing the benefits of technological advances. Policy initiatives in the area should be premised on an accurate assessment of Canada’s recent experience in education and...

Human capital plays an important role in the theory of economic growth, but it has been difficult to measure this abstract concept. We survey the psychological literature on cross-cultural IQ tests, and conclude that modern intelligence tests are well-suited for measuring an important form of a...

This chapter analyzes the effects of an aging population on individual skill choices and the production structure by means of a dynamic general equilibrium model with overlapping generations and probabilistic aging. The model allows for capital-skill complementarity, which strongly affects the...

The years following the Second World War were those of the greatest economic growth that Europe had ever seen. If the countries of the Iberian Peninsula, neutral in the conflict and ruled by dictatorial regimes, enjoyed that growth and had participated in the convergence phenomenon, Ireland,...