Amélie Lafrance

Investment in Intangible Assets in Canada: R&D, Innovation, Brand, and Mining, Oil and Gas Exploration Expenditures

This paper presents estimates of intangible investment in Canada for the purpose of innovation, advertising and resource extraction. It first expands upon work by Beckstead and Gellatly (2003), Baldwin and Hanel (2003), Beckstead and Gellatly (2003), Beckstead and Vinodrai (2003) and Baldwin and Beckstead (2003) who argue that the scope of innovative activity extends beyond research and development (RD Jalava, Ahmavarra and Alanen 2007) and shows that traditional R&D type investment estimates account for about a quarter of intangible science and engineering investments.

Firm Turnover and Productivity Growth in Selected Canadian Services Industries, 2000 to 2007

The nature of the competitive process that causes a reallocation of market shares within an industry contributes to aggregate productivity growth. This paper extends our understanding of industry differences in the competitive process by examining firm turnover and productivity growth in various services industries in Canada and situating them relative to retailing and manufacturing, two industries which have been the focus of these studies in the past. Seven industries in the services sector, namely wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, air transportation, truck transportation, broadcasting and telecommunications, business services and financial services, are examined.

Firm Dynamics: Variation in Profitability Across Canadian Firms of Different Sizes, 2000 to 2009

Are small firms more profitable than large firms? This paper uses a longitudinal firm-level dataset to explore the financial performance of firms across size classes, and across industries and provinces during the 2000-to-2009 period. It also examines the volatility of profitability across firm size classes.

Incomes from Owner-Occupied Housing for Working-Age and Retirement-Age Canadians, 1969 to 2006

Using data from the Survey of Household Spending and from its predecessor, the Survey of Family Expenditures, this paper investigates the relative incomes of retirement-age and working-age Canadians from 1969 to 2006, taking into account both explicit household income and the implicit income generated by owner-occupied housing. Over this 37-year period, the explicit incomes of retirement-age households increased at a more rapid pace than those of working-age households. Implicit income from owner-occupied housing also increased rapidly during this time, matching the rate at which the explicit income of retirement-age households increased. On average, this implicit source of earnings raised the incomes of retirement-age households (aged 70 and over) by 16%. Taking both forms of income into account, the incomes of retirement-age households (aged 70 and over), relative to the incomes of working-age households (aged 40 to 49), increased from 45% in 1969 to 59% in 2006. During this period, Canadians invested in housing assets that provided additional income upon retirement.

Productivity Growth in Canadian and U.S. Regulated Industries

This article compares the productivity growth of a set of Canadian and U.S. regulated industries. Using data from Statistics Canada’s KLEMS database and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the article examines productivity growth in transportation services (which includes air, rail, and other transportation services), broadcasting and telecommunications, cultural industries (which include publishing and information services, and motion pictures and sound recording), and financial services (which includes financial intermediation and insurance) over the period from 1977 to 2006. These industries provide the foundational networks on which other industries rely. In 1977, they were quite heavily regulated in Canada. They experienced deregulation after 1977, but still faced various types of regulation in 2006. Deregulation also occurred in the United States, but regulation has generally been less restrictive in that country over the period.

Are Small Firms More Profitable than Large Firms

This article in the Economic Insights series looks at the relationship between firm size and financial performance. It highlights the results from the research paper Firm Dynamics: Variation in Profitability Across Canadian Firms of Different Sizes, 2000 to 2009. The research paper uses a special longitudinal database that follows corporate entities. It is part of a set of research projects being carried out at Statistics Canada on the topic of business dynamics.In the last decade, small businesses have attracted attention, as they are often seen as innovators and job creators. The job and output growth, and contribution to the economy of this group of firms are often compared with those of larger businesses. However, there is little information in Canada on the payoff to small firms for attempting to innovate. Firm performance in Canada has not been comprehensively examined by means of certain financial metrics. This has resulted in a significant information gap because financial performance relates directly to the incentives that entrepreneurs face and the risks undertaken by those who finance firms.