Labour productivity growth in the Canadian business sector slowed substantially after 2000. Most of the slowdown occurred in the manufacturing sector. This paper examines how this slowdown was associated with the restructuring that occurred in manufacturing as a result of the increase in excess capacity, the dramatic increase in the Canada-U.S. exchange rate and a slowdown in export growth.
This paper presents estimates of effective multifactor productivity (MFP) growth for Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan and selected European Union (EU) countries, based on the EU KLEMS productivity database and the World Input-Output Tables. Effective MFP growth captures the impact of the productivity gains in upstream industries on the productivity growth and international competitiveness of domestic industries, thereby providing an appropriate measure of productivity growth and international competitiveness in the production of final demand products such as consumption, investment and export products. A substantial portion of MFP growth, especially for small, open economies such as Canada's, is attributable to gains in the production of intermediate inputs in foreign countries. Productivity growth tends to be higher in investment and export products than for the production of consumption products. Technical progress and productivity growth in foreign countries have made a larger contribution to production growth in investment and export products than in consumption products. The analysis provides empirical evidence consistent with the hypothesis that effective MFP growth is a more informative relevant indicator of international competitiveness than is standard MFP growth.
The paper examines whether the integration of Canadian manufacturing firms into a global value chain (GVC) improves their productivity. To control for the self-selection effect (more productive firms self-select to join a GVC), propensity-score matching and difference-in-difference methods are used. This study also assesses whether the benefits of importing and exporting vary by source and destination country. Section 2 of this report describes the data used in the analysis and the characteristics of GVC firms. Section 3 explains the analytical method; specifically, propensity-score matching and difference-in-difference regression, which are used to control for the sample selection problem. Section 4 presents results for the Canadian manufacturing sector, by industry group, by the path used to becoming a GVC, and by source and destination countries for imports and exports, respectively. Section 5 concludes.--Document.
This paper asks how market expansion contributes to productivity growth. It investigates whether entry to both new international markets and new domestic markets is associated with greater productivity growth. It also examines whether exit from export markets is necessarily associated with deteriorating performance or whether it too can lead to success when associated with movements to new markets. Finally, the paper examines the strategy of firms that move to new markets after they withdraw from export markets in order to examine the differences that set them apart from their counterparts that do not find themselves able to adapt because they simply withdraw to their home domestic markets.--Document.
This paper examines the role of firm characteristics in accounting for the between-firm average employment earnings dispersion in the Canadian business sector between 2002 and 2015. It uses two decomposition methods to analyze the level of and changes in the between-firm average employment earnings dispersion by firm characteristics, such as productivity, globalization status (importing, exporting, foreign ownership), technology intensity, firm size, firm age, industry and geographic region.
This paper highlights revisions to multifactor productivity (MFP) growth and related variables in the business sector and in individual industries that resulted from the historical revision of the Canadian System of National Accounts (CSNA) released October 1, 2012, revisions to the labour productivity accounts released October 12, 2012, and changes in the estimation of capital input that were made to improve its consistency in industry multifactor productivity growth estimates.--Includes text from document.
This paper uses a detailed industry-level data base of industry prices in the manufacturing sector in Canada and the United States to investigate whether prices are co-integrated in the two countries and whether the relationship between the two sets of prices follows the law of one price. We find that aggregate Canadian price movements track U.S. price movements closely, but not perfectly, in the long run. But there are substantial deviations from the law of one price in the short run. Moreover, many individual industries deviate from the law of one price. These deviations are related to the degree of tariff protection and to the degree of product differentiation at the industry level.
The paper examines the pricing behaviour of 81 Canadian manufacturing industries from 1974 to 1996. It explores the domestic and foreign factors that affect price formation in Canada and the circumstances in which Canadian prices respond to foreign (U.S.) influences (the law of one price), as opposed to domestic factors (i.e., labour, energy costs and productivity growth).
This Economic Insights article presents new data on the relative prices of Canadian and U.S. products, focusing on various classes of goods and services. It also evaluates the extent to which changes in these relative prices correlate with movements in the nominal exchange rate. The comparative price estimates are based on data from Statistics Canada's Purchasing Power Parity program."--Document.
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