A brief analysis of British Columbia’s productivity performance and the state of the drivers of this performance reveals that five areas merit additional focus and research. They are, in the proposed order of completion: Education and literacy, including professional qualifications and...

In this chapter, Lars Osberg and Andrew Sharpe provide an overview of trends in a number of dimensions of economic well-being (consumption flows, stocks of wealth, income equality, and economic security) from the lens of the Index of Economic Well-being, a new composite measure of economic...

Productivity research is Canada has traditionally focused on narrow economic issues. In our view, it has given inadequate attention to the broader ramifications of productivity, both in terms of shedding light on the importance of productivity for the advancement of various aspects of social...

Skills, innovation and human capital as they feature prominently on the policy agenda of industrialized countries concerned with productivity and competitiveness issues. Not surprisingly, formal education is the preferred and most conventional policy instrument of governments in pursuing these...

This paper develops an Index of Economic Well-being (IEWB) for the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway and Sweden for the period 1980 to 2001 which recognizes four components: Current effective per capita consumption flows; Net societal accumulation of stocks of...

The objectives of this report are to examine the characteristics of manufacturing in Atlantic Canada and to shed light on the factors behind the productivity gap between Atlantic Canada and Canada in the context of the manufacturing sector. A number of possible factors contributing to the...

Productivity and income growth rates and differentials vary widely among OECD countries. In this chapter, Bart van Ark develops a framework for the understanding of these productivity and income differences. The framework breaks GDP per capita into two basic drivers: labour supply and labour...

This chapter by Emile Tompa provides a comprehensive review of the theoretical underpinnings and empirical evidence of the health-productivity relationship with an emphasis on the public policy implications. This relationship goes well beyond the obvious effect of health on capacity to work both...

This report’s objective is the construction of an index of labour market well-being that is capable of measuring the well-being that individuals in a given society at a given point in time can obtain through the labour market. Besides considering simply the average return from working, workers...

The skills issue is currently at or near the top of the federal government’s policy agenda, given its importance for harnessing the benefits of technological advances. Policy initiatives in the area should be premised on an accurate assessment of Canada’s recent experience in education and...