This paper discusses the supply conditions for economic growth in terms of potential GDP estimated by the production function approach for France, Germany and Italy for the 1986:2003 period. The aim of this study is twofold: first, we keep a consistent framework as regards national account...

This paper investigates the current state of growth accounting in China. The growing empirical literature on Chinese economic growth is based on several stylised facts which stress high but erratic long-term economic growth, strong accumulation of capital and rapid population growth. From these...

Using the author’s recently constructed data set, this article measures the productivity performance of China’s 19 manufacturing industries, four mining industries, plus utilities, over the reform period 1980-2005. The approach is based on neoclassical assumptions on institutional settings...

The productivity performance of the construction sector in Canada over the last quarter century has been dismal, with output per hour lower in 2000 than in 1977. In this article Andrew Sharpe from the Centre for the Study of Living Standards examines productivity trends in this sector and...

India has created the basic rules of modern economic and political life. While the country’s institutional framework needs strengthening, it will allow India to prosper without drastic changes. Gradual economic reform has transformed India, putting it on a much faster growth path. Economic...

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...

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....

In the first contribution to the Symposium included in this volume on Future Productivity Growth in Canada, Thomas Wilson of the University of Toronto presents forecasts based on the FOCUS macroeconometric model of the Canadian economy. This model projects labour productivity growth to grow at...

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...