IPM archive

In 2001, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issued its Productivity Manual, alongside its Capital Manual (the latter was updated in 2009). These Manuals set out a detailed guide for National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) on how to expand their national accounts to incorporate a production account using the KLEMS methodology. In many cases full acceptance…

During business cycles and disruptions of global value chains, capacity utilization has important implications for explaining variations in productivity and for evaluating the effectiveness of a certain investments such as R&D and ICTs. Unfortunately, data on capacity utilization is not easily available, especially at the firm level. This article develops and evaluates a methodology for measuring…

This paper suggests a meaningful way to compare how the depreciation and retirement of assets are estimated in the national accounts of different countries and shows large differences. Applying the same assumptions in the US as in other G7 countries would reduce the US net capital stock by up to 1/3 and increase US GDP by…

Canada’s slow productivity growth rate relative to peer countries has been the focus of considerable attention among academics and policymakers. In contrast to the relatively flat trajectory for total factor productivity, Canada’s production of patents has grown considerably in the last three decades. In this article, we examine changes in Canadian patenting over the past 30…

Canada, like other countries, is undergoing an economic transformation as a result of the green and digital transitions. These megatrends create new challenges and opportunities for productivity growth. The green transition could place downward pressure on productivity growth given the current structure of the Canadian economy. That said, the Porter Hypothesis posits that well-formulated environmental regulations…

It is widely acknowledged that Canada has faced long-standing issues with productivity growth, both in comparison to its past performance and relative to other advanced economies. Additionally, it is recognized that as the transformation brought on by population aging continues, improvements in the living standards of Canadians will increasingly depend on productivity growth. This situation arises…

The high degree of integration between the Canadian and the U.S. economies promotes sharing of technologies and innovation spillovers that are conducive to long-term productivity growth convergence. However, since 2001 labour productivity growth rates have diverged in sharp contrast to the previous four decades. A comparison of labour productivity growth decomposed into contributions by industry for…

Labour productivity growth in Canada has been significantly lower since 2000, and has fallen further since 2019. In this article we examine why this has occurred. We approach the question from three angles: first we look at how Canada’s performance compares to other OECD countries, particularly the United States; second, we decompose Canadian productivity growth by…

Issue 45 comprises a five-article symposium on Canada’s productivity performance — with contributions from CSLS, Statistics Canada, Finance Canada, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada — plus three articles on measurement issues relating to capital depreciation, capacity utilization, and how national statistical institutes have responded to the OECD’s productivity and capital manuals.