Productivity Growth and International Competitiveness - ARCHIVED

This paper presents estimates of effective multifactor productivity (MFP) growth for Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan and selected European Union (EU) countries, based on the EU KLEMS productivity database and the World Input-Output Tables. Effective MFP growth captures the impact of the productivity gains in upstream industries on the productivity growth and international competitiveness of domestic industries, thereby providing an appropriate measure of productivity growth and international competitiveness in the production of final demand products such as consumption, investment and export products. A substantial portion of MFP growth, especially for small, open economies such as Canada’s, is attributable to gains in the production of intermediate inputs in foreign countries. Productivity growth tends to be higher in investment and export products than for the production of consumption products. Technical progress and productivity growth in foreign countries have made a larger contribution to production growth in investment and export products than in consumption products. The analysis provides empirical evidence consistent with the hypothesis that effective MFP growth is a more informative relevant indicator of international competitiveness than is standard MFP growth.