In 2005, the CSLS published a report that examined spending on information and communication technology (ICT) in Canada and the United States between 1987 and 2004. It found that Canadian firms lagged considerably behind US firms in ICT spending and that this situation accounted to some extent...

In 2008, Statistics Canada, for the first time, made available estimates of information and communication technology (ICT) investment by province. Given the importance of ICT investment for productivity growth, these data are important for the comparative analysis and understanding of...

It is widely recognized that machinery and equipment investment intensity is less in Canada than in the United States. What is less well know is that it is information and communications technology (ICT) investment that largely accounts for this gap. The author documents trends in ICT investment...

In recent years, interest in aggregate or composite indicators of economic and social well-being at the community, national and international levels has grown greatly. For example, the release each year of the United Nations?Human Development Index (HDI) generates considerable media interest,...

This paper develops an Index of Economic Well-being (IEWB) for the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway and Sweden for the period 1980 to 2001 which recognizes four components: Current effective per capita consumption flows; Net societal accumulation of stocks of...

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 Canadian service sector has performed well in recent years in terms of labour and multifactor productivity growth, both in absolute terms and relative to the United States, offsetting much of the poorer performance of the manufacturing sector. Service sector labour productivity growth has...

Labour Market Information (LMI) is a policy instrument that governments use to coordinate labour market adjustments. Many approaches are utilized in the provision of this information in OECD countries. This report examines approaches in five OECD countries (Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany,...