Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Andrew Sharpe Author-Email: andrew.sharpe@csls.ca Title: Editor’s Overview Abstract: THE 23RD ISSUE OF THE International Productivity Monitor includes five articles on: business innovation strategies and policies to stimulate innovation in Canada; new direct measures of the use of computer technologies in Canada and the United States and implications for Canadian productivity growth; the reasons behind the large divergence between labour productivity and real median wage growth in the United States over the 1973-2011 period; the relationship between educational attainment, employment rates and productivity in OECD countries; and the treatment in the national accounts of measures of volume output for education and health services. Classification-JEL: Y2 Keywords: Journal: International Productivity Monitor Pages: 1-2 Volume: 23 Year: 2012 Month: Spring File-URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/23/IPM-23-editoroverview.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:23:y:2012:0 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Marcel Côté Author-Name: Roger Miller Author-Email: rmiller@groupesecor.com Title: Stimulating Innovation: Is Canada Pursuing the Right Policies? Abstract: Based on a global survey of over 800 innovative firms, a new framework has been developed by the authors to understand innovation. Using the perspective of the innovators to explain the diversity of the strategies behind business innovation, they identified six broad patterns called games of innovation around which innovations are structured. The article points out that this framework raises significant issues about the effectiveness of current Canadian innovation policies. In light of the productivity challenges that Canada faces, which appear to be largely related to innovation, the framework also provides useful insights into future directions for public policies. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Journal: International Productivity Monitor Pages: 3-16 Volume: 23 Year: 2012 Month: Spring File-URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/23/IPM-23-Cote-Miller.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:23:y:2012:1 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Michelle Alexopoulos Author-Email: malex@chass.utoronto.ca Author-Name: Jon Cohen Title: The Effects of Computer Technologies on the Canadian Economy: Evidence from New Direct Measures Abstract: New indicators of technical change in the field of computers based on new titles held by Canadian libraries are presented, and are used to demonstrate that a positive computer technology shock in Canada increases hours worked, output, and productivity in the short run. These measures indicate, first, that advances in the implementation of computer technology in Canada are largely influenced by innovations in the United States; and second, when compared to a United States-based indicator, that a gap emerged between United States and Canadian-held titles around the time that the productivity gap emerged between the two countries. Given that a strong, causal relationship is found to exist between the new indicators and total factor productivity, this evidence provides additional support for the hypothesis that crosss-border differences in the development and use of new computer technologies play a key role in explaining Canada’s productivity gap with the United States. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Journal: International Productivity Monitor Pages: 17-32 Volume: 23 Year: 2012 Month: Spring File-URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/23/IPM-23-Alexopoulos-Cohen.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:23:y:2012:2 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Lawrence Mishel Author-Email: lmishel@epi.org Author-Name: Kar-Fai Gee Author-Email: kar-fai.gee@csls.ca Title: Why Aren’t Workers Benefiting from Labour Productivity Growth in the United States? Abstract: Changes in real wages, or wages adjusted for the cost of living, are the most direct route through which labour productivity affects living standards. Yet labour productivity in the United States increased by 80 per cent between 1973 and 2011, while median real hourly wages remained virtually stagnant. This article presents a framework in which this reality is decomposed into four components: deterioration of labour’s terms of trade, rising benefits as a share of wages, decline of the share of labour compensation in GDP, and rising wage inequality. Since 2000, the historically large gap between real median wages and productivity in the United States was driven by rising wage inequality and the decline of labour compensation as a share of GDP. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Journal: International Productivity Monitor Pages:31-43 Volume: 23 Year: 2012 Month: Spring File-URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/23/IPM-23-Mishel-Gee.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:23:y:2012:3 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Renaud Bourlès Author-Email: renaud.bourles@centrale-marseille.fr Author-Name: Gilbert Cette Author-Name: Anastasia Cozarenco Title: Employment and Productivity: Disentangling Employment Structure and Qualification Effects Abstract: Based on a disaggregation of the workforce into three qualification or educational attainment categories, the article estimates the effects on hourly productivity from changes in the employment rate structure and from changes in the qualification structure. 21 OECD countries are then ranked in terms of the potential gains in GDP they could expect from moving to the educational attainment rates and employment rates of the best performing countries. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Journal: International Productivity Monitor Pages: 44-54 Volume: 23 Year: 2012 Month: Spring File-URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/23/IPM-23-Bourles-Cette-Cozarenco.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:23:y:2012:4 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Aled ab Iorwerth Author-Email: abiorwerth.Aled@fin.gc.ca Title: To Capture Production or Wellbeing? A Review Article on Towards Measuring the Volume Output of Education and Health Services: A Handbook Abstract: This review article evaluates the report Towards Measuring the Volume Output of Education and Health Services: A Handbook produced by the OECD. Traditionally, input costs have been used to estimate the value of education and health services. The Handbook provides detailed analysis and recommendations regarding appropriate methodologies and data to improve volume output measures for these services. The author welcomes the efforts of the OECD in this area. However, it is argued that output measures should focus on the estimates of the volume of production of these services rather than their social valuation. As such, unit costs should be used as weights when aggregating outputs rather than marginal social valuations, which introduce a degree of subjectivity. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Journal: International Productivity Monitor Pages: 55-70 Volume: 23 Year: 2012 Month: Spring File-URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/23/IPM-23-Iorwerth.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:23:y:2012:5