This paper asks how the performance of self-employed unincorporated businesses affects the size of the gap in labour productivity between Canada and the United States. To do so, the business sector in each country is divided into unincorporated and corporate businesses, and estimates of labour...

This paper has three main objectives. First, it examines the level of multifactor productivity (MFP) in Canada relative to that of the United States for the 1994-to-2003 period. Second, it examines the relative importance of differences in capital intensity and MFP in accounting for the labour...

This paper compares long-run growth in labour productivity in Canada and the United States from 1961 to 2006. Over the entire period labour productivity in both countries grew at about the same rate. But Canadian growth exceeded that of the United States up to the early 1980s. Since then, U.S....

This study examines Canadian productivity performance over the period from 1961 to 2005. It investigates labour productivity growth and the sources of improvements therein - multifactor productivity growth, capital intensity and skill upgrading. It also examines the contribution that...

This paper examines the various products associated with the quarterly labour productivity program. It outlines the nature of the volatility in the very short-run estimates and examines properties of the revisions made to the estimates of Canadian labour productivity and its components (gross...

Comparisons of Canada’s economy to that of the United States are done for several purposes. On the one hand, analysts are interested in whether there is an output gap between the two countries — whether Canada is as well off as the United States in terms of the quantities of goods and...

In this paper, we present measures of the extent of renewal in Canada’s manufacturing sector over a four decade period (1961-1999); a period that roughly represents the productive lifetime of a worker. We measure turnover over periods of one, two, three and four decades. For each timeframe, we...

This paper investigates the extent to which productivity growth is the result of firm turnover as output is shifted from one firm to another, driven by the competitive process. Turnover occurs as some firms gain market share and others lose it. Some of the resulting turnover is due to entry and...

Productivity levels and productivity growth rates vary significantly over space. These differences are perhaps most pronounced between countries, but they remain acutely evident within national spaces as economic growth favors some cities and regions and not others. In this paper, we map the...

This paper examines the influence of the self-employed on the growth in labour productivity in the business sector. There has been a dramatic expansion of self-employment in the Canadian economy over the 1987 to 1998 period. In addition, a comparison is made of Canadian and United States...