The fourth issue of the International Productivity Monitor produced by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards contains five articles. Topics covered are: recent productivity developments in the United States and Canada and implications for the Canada-U.S. productivity and income gaps; the...

This article by Jeffrey I. Bernstein of Carleton University and the NBER discusses the use of total factor productivity for price setting in regulated industries. He argues that the longterm, industry-wide productivity experience that is not subject to strategic manipulation by regulated firms...

The factors behind the emergence of the New Economy are still poorly understood. In this article, Pascal Petit from CEPREMAP and CNRS in France provides an institutional perspective on the developmental phases or roots of this New Economy. He analyzes the structural, institutional and...

Both ICT-producing and ICT-using industries have contributed disproportionately to labour productivity growth in the 1990s. In this article, Bart van Ark, Robert Inklaar from the University of Groningen and Robert H. McGuckin of the U.S. Conference Board compare Canada, the United States and...

In this article, as part of the symposium on total factor productivity, Richard G. Lipsey of Simon Fraser University and Kenneth Carlaw of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand provide a trenchant critique of the concept of total factor productivity. They conclude that "the degree of...

Small and medium enterprises have strengthened their importance during the last decades in most industrialized countries, including the United States, Germany, Japan and Canada. The province of Quebec makes no exception as firms of less than 200 employees generate a substantial portion of its...