Beiling Yan

A Comparison of Canadian and U.S. Productivity Levels: An Exploration of Measurement Issues

This paper examines the level of labour productivity in Canada relative to that of the United States in 1999. In doing so, it addresses two main issues. The first is the comparability of the measures of GDP and labour inputs that the statistical agency in each country produces. Second, it investigates how a price index can be constructed to reconcile estimates of Canadian and U.S. GDP per hour worked that are calculated in Canadian and U.S. dollars respectively. After doing so, and taking into account alternative assumptions about Canada/U.S. prices, the paper provides point estimates of Canadas relative labour productivity of the total economy in 1999 of around 94% that of the United States. The paper points out that at least a 10 percentage point confidence interval should be applied to these estimates. The size of the range is particularly sensitive to assumptions that are made about import and export prices.

User Guide for Statistics Canada's Annual Multifactor Productivity Program

The Canadian Productivity Accounts (CPA) of Statistics Canada maintain two multifactor productivity (MFP) programs. The Major Sector Multifactor Productivity Program develops the indexes of MFP for the total business sector and major industry groups in the business sector. The Industry Multifactor Productivity Program or the Industry KLEMS Productivity Program develops the industry productivity database that includes MFP indexes, output, capital (K), labour (L), energy (E), materials (M) and services (S) inputs for the individual industries of the business sector at various levels of industry aggregation. This paper describes the methodologies and data sources that are used to construct the major sector MFP indexes and the industry productivity database (or the KLEMS database). More specifically, this paper is meant to: provide a background of the major sector MFP program and the industry KLEMS productivity program; present the methodology for measuring MFP; describe the data sources and data available from the MFP programs; present a quality rating of the industry KLEMS productivity data; and describe the research agenda related to the MFP program.

Export Growth, Capacity Utilization, and Productivity Growth: Evidence from the Canadian Manufacturing Plants

Aggregate labor and multifactor productivity growth slowed substantially post‐2000 in the Canadian manufacturing sector. To examine the source of the decline, this paper proposes a decomposition method that delves deeper into the two micro‐components of aggregate productivity growth: a within‐plant component and a between‐plant component. The decomposition builds on earlier work by Jorgenson and his collaborators that decomposes aggregate productivity growth into its industry components, but applies it to the plant level and introduces non‐neoclassical features of the plant‐level economic environment. It finds that the preponderance of the aggregate labor and multifactor productivity growth slowdown is due to the pro‐cyclical nature of productivity growth arising from capacity utilization. Almost all of the aggregate productivity growth slowdown is driven by exporters, as exporters experienced large declines in labor productivity growth in the post‐2000 period as a result of large declines in their capacity utilization.

Relative Multifactor Productivity Levels in Canada and the United States: A Sectoral Analysis

This paper has three main objectives. First, it examines the level of multifactor productivity (MFP) in Canada relative to that of the United States for the 1994-to-2003 period. Second, it examines the relative importance of differences in capital intensity and MFP in accounting for the labour productivity differences between the two countries. Third, it traces the overall MFP difference between Canada and the United States to its industry origins and estimates the contributions of the goods, services and engineering sectors to the overall MFP gap. Our main findings are as follows. First, the overall capital intensity is as high in Canada as in the United States; but there are considerable differences in Canadas capital intensity across asset classes. Canada has considerably less machinery and equipment, about the same amount of buildings and considerably more engineering construction. Second, most of the differences in labour productivity between Canada and the United States are due to the differences in MFP. Third, our industry results show that the levels of labour productivity and MFP in the goods and the engineering sectors are closer to those of the United States. But, the level of labour and multifactor productivity in the services sector is much lower in Canada. The lower levels of labour productivity and MFP in the Canadian services sector account for most of the overall productivity level difference between the two countries.

Do Canadians Pay More than Americans for the Same Products

The paper examines whether Canadians were paying more than the Americans for the goods and services they purchase, based on more than 160 product price data for each of the five years under study (1985, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999).

Domestic and Foreign Influences on Canadian Prices Over Exchange Rate Cycles, 1974 to 1996

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). It finds that: (1) Canadian manufacturing prices are, on average, set using a mixture of a cost mark-up pricing rule and the law-of-one-price rule: both domestic factors (such as input prices and productivity) and foreign factors (such as competing U.S. prices) exert important influences on Canadian prices; (2) Canadian prices are more sensitive to U.S. prices if the industry faces higher import competition and if home and foreign products are less differentiated. Compared to prices of domestic products, prices of imported foreign products are more responsive to foreign prices. However, the price of imports also responds to Canadian prices; though this pricing-to-market phenomenon is reduced as imports increase in importance; (3) Industry differences exist. Domestic prices respond more to productivity changes in industries where competition is more intense and where products are more homogeneous. Imports respond more to domestic factors when they account for a smaller share of the domestic market; (4) As the pressure from foreign markets increases, in a period of an appreciating Canadian dollar, changes in prices are influenced more by fluctuations in foreign prices. In comparison, when the pressure from foreign markets decreases, in a period of a depreciating Canadian dollar, changes in Canadian prices are more responsive to input cost changes at home. Disequilibria that were generated by previous shocks are overcome more quickly during periods when the exchange rate appreciated.