University degree holders in large cities are more prevalent and are growing at a more rapid pace than in smaller cities and rural areas. This relatively high rate of growth stems from net migratory flows and/or higher rates of degree attainment in cities. Using data from the 1996 and 2001 Censuses, this paper tests the relative importance of these two sources of human capital growth by decomposing degree-holder growth across cities into net migratory flows (domestic and foreign) and in situ growth: that is, growth resulting from higher rates of degree attainment among the resident populations of cities."--Document.
Understanding the importance of the dynamic entry process in the Canadian economy involves measuring size of entry. The main purpose of this paper is to summarize the information we have on the amount of entry in Canada. The paper also fulfils another purpose. Some studies have focused on cross-country comparisons (Geroski and Schwalbach 1991; OECD 2001). Interpretation of the results of these studies is difficult unless methodological issues regarding how entry is measured are addressed. Without an understanding of the extent to which different databases produce different results, international comparisons are difficult to evaluate. Cross-country comparisons that are derived from extremely different data sources may be misleading because of the lack of comparability. Since there is more than one reliable database that can be used to estimate entry in Canada, this paper asks how measured entry rates vary across different Canadian databases. By examining the difference in entry rates produced by these databases, we provide an estimate of the range or confidence interval that should be used in evaluating whether there are real differences in measured entry rates across countries. We also offer guidance as to the questions that should be asked about the databases used by researchers who conduct international studies. Finally, we make suggestions as to areas of comparison on which international studies should focus.
This paper examines the growth of human capital in Canadian and U.S. cities. Using pooled Census of Population data for 242 urban centres, the authors evaluate the link between long run employment growth and the supply of different types of skilled labour. The paper also examines whether the scientific capabilities of cities are influenced by amenities such as the size of the local cultural sector.--Document.
In recent years, cities have become increasingly interested in their ability to generate, attract and retain human capital. One measure of human capital is employment in science- and engineering-based occupations. This paper provides a comparison of the employment shares of these specialized occupations across Canadian and U.S. cities by using data from the Canadian and the U.S. censuses from 1980-1981 and 2000-2001. The paper, therefore, provides a perspective on how Canadian cities performed relative to their U.S. counterparts over a twenty-year period. It also seeks to evaluate how cities of different sizes have performed, because large cities may be advantaged over smaller cities in terms of factors influencing both the demand for, and supply of, scientists and engineers.
Recently, considerable public attention has been paid to the possibility that head office employment has been declining as a result of the migration of head offices to other countries, what is sometimes referred to as hollowing-out. This paper asks whether we have observed evidence of this process using new data from Statistics Canada's Business Register, over the past four years (1999-2002). This paper provides a perspective on the changing significance of the head offices in Canada by measuring counts of head offices and their employment. Overall, the paper finds that there are relatively few sectors or enterprises with patterns of decline in their head office function.
This paper studies changes in diversification of firms and plants since the early 1970s in the Canadian manufacturing sector. It finds that there has been a general increase in specialization of both firms and plants. Firms have been continuously reducing the span of industries in which they operate, particularly when the industries are unrelated. Commodity specialization has also occurred at the plant level; however, in contrast to industry specialization, the pace of commodity specialization emerged late in the period, around the time of implementation of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States. Plant specialization increased most in those plants that moved most strongly into export markets.
This paper examines the emergence of the knowledge economy by studying the increasing importance of high-knowledge occupations over 1971-2001. It uses data from the Census of Population to classify workers into the more knowledge-intensive occupations and then investigates how the share of these workers has varied across time & across sectors. The paper is organized around a key set of questions examining the following: whether the knowledge economy has grown dramatically only in recent years or has it been a continuous process over the study period; growth in different groups of knowledge workers; differences in increases in educational attainment of different knowledge worker groups; increases in relative earnings in the knowledge occupations; and differences among industrial sectors in the increase in importance of knowledge workers.
This paper focusses on the first of these issues: the boundaries that should be used in defining R&D expenditures. It examines whether the use of the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development definition is adequate for this purpose and argues that the appropriate concept of R&D that is required for the Accounts should incorporate a broad range of science-based innovation costs, and that this concept is amenable to measurement. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of failure to move in the direction of an expanded definition of R&D capital and the consequences for comparisons of the Canadian gross domestic product to that of other countries.
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