According to Statistics Canada productivity estimates, the rate of growth of real output per hour in the construction industry in Canada over the 1981-2006 period was 0.53 per cent per year, one-third of the business sector average. This article examines evidence for and against the hypothesis...

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...

La diffusion des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) était supposée déboucher sur un régime économique sans précédent marqué par une croissance forte, régulière et non inflationniste. S'ouvrait une ère nouvelle en matière d'organisation des firmes (essor des...

The paper aims to contribute to the longstanding technology-push vs. demand-pull debate and to the literature on renewable energy diffusion and renewable energy policy assessment. We argue that in addition to the traditional push-pull dichotomy, the drivers of technological change must be...

As the Soviet Union broke up, Kaliningrad suddenly found itself separated from mainland Russia by new frontiers. Since then, a dramatic trade opening has occurred, and regional trade and production have undergone profound changes. Kaliningrad has experienced a major shift in its economic...

The article aims at identifying socioeconomic factors which explain the Chinese famine of 1959-1961. The main hypothesis of this paper is that the radicalism of Great Leap Forward policies generated both a decline of agricultural output (availability problems) and the implementation of an...

French Abstract:</B> Le système bancaire chinois s'est très bien comporté ces dernières années, à la fois par rapport à ses homologues occidentaux mais aussi par rapport à sa propre situation il y a seulement quelques années. L'amélioration en termes de taille et de rentabilité résulte...

Les administrations infranationales ont un rôle déterminant à jouer dans le respect des engagements pris au regard de la biodiversité aux niveaux national et international. En s’appuyant sur l’expérience pratique de l’Écosse (Royaume-Uni), de la France et d’autres signataires de la...

" Switzerland is the growth laggard in the industrial world " - this dismal view has become part and parcel of today's conventional wisdom in Switzerland and elsewhere. We show it to be but partially true : accurate when judged by the trend growth rate of officially recorded real GDPs in...

This eleventh issue of the International Productivity Monitor, published by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, contains seven articles on a range of topics: policies to improve productivity growth in Canada; the causes of lower information and communications technology investment in...