The United Nations has set as a goal for the world community the halving of the rate of poverty between 1990 and 2015. Previous literature and empirical work provides a strong consensus that growth reduces poverty, and several recent studies have also found that the higher is income inequality...

The objective of this report is to document China’s productivity performance since 1978 and determine its impact on poverty. The report finds that China has made substantial progress in economic development since economic reform started in 1978. Strong economic growth has been fuelled by rapid...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a thorough discussion of the definitional and data issues associated with the measurement of aggregate labour productivity growth in Canada and the United States. The paper examines all data sources for output, employment and hours estimates in the two...

The objectives of this report are to examine the characteristics of manufacturing in Atlantic Canada and to shed light on the factors behind the productivity gap between Atlantic Canada and Canada in the context of the manufacturing sector. A number of possible factors contributing to the...

The gap between Canadian and U.S. living standards widened considerably in the 1990s. Americans, on average, were 16 per cent better off in terms of real personal income per capita in 2000 than in 1989, while Canadians experienced a 5 percent increase in real incomes. The thesis of this paper is...

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) is a think tank based in Washington, D.C. founded in 1990 with the objective of analyzing international productivity levels from both economic and management perspectives. MGI uses microeconomic analysis on a sector-by-sector level to study the effects that...

The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the evolution of productivity in the natural resources industries in Canada over the last 40 years. This report presents data and discusses trends in labour and total factor productivity for natural resources industries in Canada over the...

Canada’s productivity performance reflects in large part our innovation record, both in terms of business sector R&D and information and communications technology (ICT) investment. The objective of this report is to examine the country’s ICT investment performance since 2000. The key finding...

The objective of this report is to evaluate the impact of the oil and gas industry on labour productivity growth in Canada since 2000 through an exploration of the various channels, both direct and indirect, by which the oil and gas sector affects aggregate productivity. The report sheds light...

Canada’s living standards have been falling relative to those in the United States in recent years. The Chairman and CEO of the TD Bank Financial Group, Charles Baillie (2001) has suggested that Canadians adopt as a societal goal not only the reversal of this downward trend, but that Canadian...