This 13th issue of the International Productivity Monitor produced by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards contains five articles. In contrast to the last issue on the Boskin Commission Report after a decade, this issue has a strong Canadian flavour. Topics covered are the benchmarking...

The first section of the article reviews general measurement problems associated with measuring sectoral total factor productivity. Secondly, the article argues that the production accounts in the present System of National Accounts (SNA) need to be extended somewhat in order to be suitable as a...

Trend productivity growth is a crucial determinant of future living standards as well as fiscal balances. In this article, Benoit Robidoux and Bing-Sun Wong from Finance Canada examine the issue of whether trend productivity growth has increased in Canada and conclude that in fact it has. If...

Dirk Pilat and Paul Schreyer of the OECD discuss the new OECD Productivity Database. The database covers 26 OECD countries for labour productivity estimates, as well as 14 countries for multifactor productivity estimates. While the database represents the most comparable productivity estimates...

What have we learned about productivity in the past two decades? In this article, Andrew Sharpe from the Centre for the Study of Living Standards reviews a recently published NBER volume entitled New Development in Productivity Analysis, edited by Charles R. Hulten, Edwin R. Dean, and Michael J....

Why did European productivity growth slow down while American growth accelerated since the 1990s? In this article we provide a detailed analysis of the sources of growth from a comparative industry perspective, based on our recent book Economic Growth in Europe. We argue that Europe’s falling...

Since 1995, productivity growth has accelerated significantly in the United States. Information technology has always been thought to be the driving force behind this development. In this article by Kevin Stiroh of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provides strong empirical support for this...

Innovation is widely recognized as a key ingredient of productivity success. This article by Someshwar Rao, Ashfaq Ahmad, William Horsman, and Phaedra Kaptein-Russell of Industry Canada provides support for this view by finding a strong positive relationship between measures of fundamental...

Has the economy fundamentally changed in the 1990s because of the introduction of information technology or is the impact of IT not so much "new" as larger than before? In this article, Barry Bosworth and Jack Triplett of the Brooking Institution examine this issue with a detailed analysis of...

International productivity comparisons have traditionally focused on productivity growth rates. International productivity level comparisons are much more complex, requiring comparable industry data and estimates of purchasing power at a detailed industry level. The International Comparisons of...