Productivity accounts

Description:

This paper examines the impact of the revisions to labour productivity estimates and related variables covering the revision cycle of the National Accounts from 2004 to 2007 for Canada and from 2005 to 2007 for the United States.

Description: This table contains 1404 series, with data for years 1961 - 1997 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years), and was last released on 2009-01-22. This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (1 items: Canada ...), Multifactor productivity and related variables (27 items: Multifactor productivity based on gross output; Multifactor productivity based on value-added; Labour productivity based on value-added; Labour productivity based on gross output ...), Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) (52 items: Agricultural and related services industries; Mining (including milling); quarrying and oil well industries; Fishing and trapping industries; Logging and forestry industries ...).

Description:

This paper makes use of a growth accounting framework to examine the importance of public capital for private sector productivity growth. Most measures of multifactor productivity consider only the inputs of the business sector. This paper produces an alternate measure of multifactor productivity for the business sector that incorporates the impact of public capital. It uses the estimate of the elasticity of business sector output with respect to public capital derived from Macdonald (2008). Over the period, the conventional estimate of MFP growth averages 0.4% per year. About half of this growth is attributable to public capital.

Description:

Many historical comparisons of international productivity use measures of labour productivity (output per worker). Differences in labour productivity can be caused by differences in technical efficiency or differences in capital intensity. Moving to measures of total factor productivity allows international comparisons to ascertain whether differences in labour productivity arise from differences in efficiency or differences in factors utilized in the production process.

This paper examines differences in output per worker in the manufacturing sectors of Canada and the United States in 1929 and the extent to which it arises from efficiency differences. It makes corrections for differences in capital and materials intensity per worker in order to derive a measure of total factor efficiency of Canada relative to the United States, using detailed industry data. It finds that while output per worker in Canada was only about 75% of the United States productivity level, the total factor productivity measure of Canada was about the same as the United States level - that is, there was very little difference in technical efficiency in the two countries. Canada's lower output per worker was the result of the use of less capital and materials per worker than the United States.

Description:

This paper 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 paper examines productivity growth in transportation services (which includes air and rail), broadcasting and telecommunications, and financial services (which includes financial intermediation and insurance), over the period from 1977 to 2003. The majority of these provide the foundational networks on which other industries rely. These sectors were quite heavily regulated in Canada at the beginning of the period of study (1977), experienced partial deregulation during the period and still faced various types of regulation at the end (2003). Deregulation also occurred in the United States, but regulation has generally been less restrictive there over most of the period.

The evidence shows that many of the Canadian industries that underwent deregulation experienced faster labour productivity growth and multifactor productivity growth than did the aggregate Canadian business sector and had similar or higher productivity growth than did their counterparts in the United States over the 1977-to-2003 period. Those industries include rail transportation, broadcasting and telecommunications, financial intermediation and insurance carriers. The airline industry had slower productivity growth in Canada than in the United States over the 1977-to-2003 period.

Description:

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 Canada's 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.

Description:

Official data from statistical agencies are not always ideal for cross-country comparisons because of differences in data sources and methodology. Analysts who engage in cross-country comparisons need to carefully choose among alternatives and sometimes adapt data especially for their purposes. This paper develops comparable capital stock estimates to examine the relative capital intensity of Canada and the United States.

To do so, the paper applies common depreciation rates to Canadian and U.S. assets to come up with comparable capital stock estimates by assets and by industry between the two countries. Based on common depreciation rates, it finds that capital intensity is higher in the Canadian business sector than in the U.S. business sector. This is the net result of quite different ratios at the individual asset level. Canada has as higher intensity of engineering infrastructure assets per dollar of gross domestic product produced. Canada has a lower intensity of information and communications technology (ICT) machinery and equipment (M&E). Non-ICT M&E and building assets intensities are more alike in the two countries.

However, these results do not control for the fact that different asset-specific capital intensities between Canada and the United States may be the result of a different industrial structure. When both assets and industry structure are taken into account, the overall picture changes somewhat. Canada's business sector continues to have a higher intensity of engineering infrastructure and about the same intensity of building assets; however, it has a deficit in M&E that goes beyond ICT assets.

Description:

This paper examines whether or not the long-term government bond rate could reasonably be employed as the rate of return on public capital when calculating public sector gross domestic product. It finds that the rate of return on public capital is lower than often reported and is roughly consistent with the rate of return on private capital. Given that there is a range of estimates that are plausible, the paper concludes that the long-run government bond rate could be used as a conservative estimate for the rate of return for public infrastructure.

Previous studies have shown that production function estimates tend to find rates of return that are implausibly large, while cost function estimates appear more reasonable. This paper shows that public capital and total factor productivity (TFP) growth behave similarly, and argues that production function estimates for the impact of public capital overstate its impact as a result, catching part of what belongs in estimates of TFP. It also shows that the similarity between the growth in public capital and TFP leads to a large confidence interval around public capital elasticity estimates derived from the production function framework. The paper then proceeds by generating a confidence interval from the production function estimated first with and then without TFP growth. It then uses a cost function to pinpoint more precisely estimates for the marginal cost savings from public capital. Importantly, the estimate derived from the cost function is found in the lower part of the confidence interval derived from the production function. The rate of return associated with the overlapping estimates is then shown to cover a range that extends from the average long-run government bond rate to the rate of return on private capital.

Description:

This paper provides an overview of the productivity program at Statistics Canada and a brief description of Canada's productivity performance. The paper defines productivity and the various measures that are used to investigate different aspects of productivity growth. It describes the difference between partial productivity measures (such as labour productivity) and a more complete measure (multifactor productivity) and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The paper explains why productivity is important. It outlines how productivity growth fits into the growth accounting framework and how this framework is used to examine the various sources of economic growth. The paper briefly discusses the challenges that face statisticians in measuring productivity growth. It also provides an overview of Canada's long-term productivity performance and compares Canada to the United States - both in terms of productivity levels and productivity growth rates.

Description:

Productivity and wages tend to be higher in cities. This is typically explained by agglomeration economies, which increase the returns associated with urban locations. Competing arguments of specialization and diversity undergird these claims. Empirical research has long sought to confirm the existence of agglomeration economies and to adjudicate between the models of Marshall, Arrow and Romer (MAR) that suggest the benefits of proximity are largely confined to individual industries, and the claims of Jacobs (1969) that such benefits derive from a general increase in the density of economic activity in a particular place and are shared by all occupants of that location. The primary goal of this paper is to identify the main sources of urban increasing returns, after Marshall (1920). A secondary goal is to examine the geographical distance across which externalities flow between businesses in the same industry. We bring to bear on these questions plant-level data organized in the form of a panel across the years 1989 and 1999. The panel data overcome selection bias resulting from unobserved plant-level heterogeneity that is constant over time. Plant-level production functions are estimated across the Canadian manufacturing sector as a whole and for five broad industry groups, each characterized by the nature of their output. Results provide strong support for Marshall's (1920) claims about the importance of buyer-supplier networks, labour market pooling and spillovers. The data show spillovers enhance plant productivity within industries rather than between them and that these spillovers tend to be more spatially extensive than previous studies have found.

Description: Multifactor productivity, value-added, capital input and labour input in the aggregate business sector and major sub-sectors, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), annual (index, 2002=100).

Description: Multifactor productivity, gross output, value-added, capital, labour and intermediate inputs at a detailed industry level, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), annual (index, 2002=100).

Description:

Quarterly labour productivity and related measures, for the aggregate business sector, indexes.

Description:

Quarterly labour productivity and related measures, by major industrial sectors for the business sector (15 two-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industries) and two sectors (goods-producing businesses and service-producing businesses), as well as for the total economy and the non-business sector, indexes.

Description:

Labour productivity and related measures by business sector industry and by non-commercial activity consistent with the industry accounts, provinces and territories, annual.

Description: Labour statistics by job category, for Canada, the provinces and territories, annual.

Description:

This table presents data for the current year and previous 4 years on labour statistics by job category, for Canada, the provinces and territories, annually, by total number of jobs.

Description:

This table presents data for the current year and previous 4 years on labour statistics by job category, for Canada, the provinces and territories, annually, by total number of jobs.

Description:

This table presents data for the current year and previous 4 years on labour statistics by job category, for Canada, the provinces and territories, annually, by total number of jobs.

Description:

This table presents data for the current year and previous 4 years on labour statistics by job category, for Canada, the provinces and territories, annually, by total number of jobs.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Canada and the United States share a deep economic relationship that contributes to most measures of their economic performances having a tight common trend over the long term. However, a notable exception is the increasing disparity in labour productivity growth between the two nations. This article summarizes recent research by Statistics Canada, focusing on the information and cultural services industry and how its competitive intensity relative to the United States has influenced the Canada-U.S. labour productivity growth gap since 2001.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic affected the Canadian economy in numerous ways, one of which was changing the relationship between growth in production, and changes in real consumption and real gross fixed capital formation (GFCF). Typically, real consumption and real GFCF are expected to progress similarly to real gross domestic product (GDP), however during the period covered by the COVID-19 pandemic, real consumption and real GFCF grew at a stronger pace than real GDP. This article illustrates how examining real income rather than real production can address this paradox. Specifically, the roles of changes in production (the use of capital, labour and multifactor productivity used to produce real GDP) and changes in non-production sources of real income growth (the trading gain and net income from abroad) are examined.

Description:

Rising wages and prices have characterized 2021 and 2022. Soaring unit labour costs have raised competitiveness concerns. This article examines the relationship between real wages and productivity to see whether real wage growth (growth in real total compensation per hour worked) has lagged behind labour productivity growth in recent years. It examines whether the result is sensitive to differences in the definition of real wages.

Description:

This presentation focuses on labour productivity, a measure of efficiency widely used in conjunction with data on labour costs and profitability to gauge the competitiveness of Canadian businesses.

Description:

The COVID-19 Pandemic has been affecting Canadians’ daily lives since the second quarter of 2020. Production and employment were cut back largely at the beginning in order to slow the spread of this contagious disease, leading to a sharp decline in income and a rise in the unemployment rate. GDP per capita of a country is often used for assessing the standard of living and its cross-country comparisons. Since 2020, Canada’s per capita GDP has averaged -1.3% per year, down from its long-term annual average of 1.2% from 1981 to 2019 and from 1.0% per year from 2010 to 2019. For a better understanding of the sources of Canada’s per capita GDP growth, this article decomposes GDP per capita into labour productivity, work intensity, employment rate, participation rate, and the share of working population. The contributions of these 5 ratios to Canada’s per capita GDP growth are examined.

Description:

An increase in the economic participation of women has been identified as a major driver of economic growth, leading to increased interest in supporting the entrepreneurial activities of women. This paper uses newly developed data on the gender of business owners to investigate differences in labour productivity between men-owned, women-owned and equally owned enterprises. This paper uses the Canadian Employer–Employee Dynamics Database (CEEDD).

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description:

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how production occurs in the economy in two ways. One is the full or partial closure of non-essential activities such as travel, hospitality, arts and entertainment, personal services, airlines, etc. The other is the widespread shift from in-office work to working from home. This Insights article depicts labour productivity growth in Canada and its sources by industry during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to examine the implications these changes may have had on the productivity performance of the economy.

Description: This product contains articles related to the latest methodological, conceptual developments in the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts as well as the analysis of the Canadian economy. It includes articles detailing new methods, concepts and statistical techniques used to compile the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts. It also includes information related to new or expanded data products, provides updates and supplements to information found in various guides and analytical articles touching upon a broad range of topics related to the Canadian economy.

Description:

This paper describes the evolution of the Multifactor Productivity Program launched at Statistics Canada in 1987 and the improvements made in multifactor productivity measurement since then. The improvements were made in response to developments in the economic literature, better data sources, and the needs of the user community. The paper also summarizes research that uses alternate data and methodologies to assess the accuracy of the Multifactor Productivity Program and to provide insights into areas that traditional international multifactor productivity programs omit. Finally, the paper outlines future directions that are being contemplated to further improve the measurement of productivity at Statistics Canada.

Description:

This report highlights the revisions to the quarterly estimates of labour productivity and associated variables in the business sector resulting from the historical revision of the national gross domestic product by income and by expenditure accounts (NIEA) released on October 1st, 2012.

Description:

Measures of productivity are derived by comparing outputs and inputs. The System of National Accounts (SNA) in Canada provides a useful framework for organizing the information required for comparisons of this type. Integrated systems of economic accounts provide coherent, consistent alternate estimates of the various concepts that can be used to measure productivity.

Description:

Official data from statistical agencies are not always ideal for cross-country comparisons because of differences in data sources and methodology. Analysts who engage in cross-country comparisons need to carefully choose among alternatives and sometimes adapt data especially for their purposes. This paper develops comparable capital stock estimates to examine the relative capital intensity of Canada and the United States.

To do so, the paper applies common depreciation rates to Canadian and U.S. assets to come up with comparable capital stock estimates by assets and by industry between the two countries. Based on common depreciation rates, it finds that capital intensity is higher in the Canadian business sector than in the U.S. business sector. This is the net result of quite different ratios at the individual asset level. Canada has as higher intensity of engineering infrastructure assets per dollar of gross domestic product produced. Canada has a lower intensity of information and communications technology (ICT) machinery and equipment (M&E). Non-ICT M&E and building assets intensities are more alike in the two countries.

However, these results do not control for the fact that different asset-specific capital intensities between Canada and the United States may be the result of a different industrial structure. When both assets and industry structure are taken into account, the overall picture changes somewhat. Canada's business sector continues to have a higher intensity of engineering infrastructure and about the same intensity of building assets; however, it has a deficit in M&E that goes beyond ICT assets.

Description:

This paper provides an overview of the productivity program at Statistics Canada and a brief description of Canada's productivity performance. The paper defines productivity and the various measures that are used to investigate different aspects of productivity growth. It describes the difference between partial productivity measures (such as labour productivity) and a more complete measure (multifactor productivity) and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The paper explains why productivity is important. It outlines how productivity growth fits into the growth accounting framework and how this framework is used to examine the various sources of economic growth. The paper briefly discusses the challenges that face statisticians in measuring productivity growth. It also provides an overview of Canada's long-term productivity performance and compares Canada to the United States - both in terms of productivity levels and productivity growth rates.

Description:

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; anddescribe the research agenda related to the MFP program.

Description:

This paper examines the various products associated with the quarterly labour productivity program. It outlines the nature of the volatility in the very short-run estimates and examines properties of the revisions made to the estimates of Canadian labour productivity and its components (gross domestic product and hours worked) since the inception of the program in 2001.

Description:

This paper examines the effects of alternative specifications of the user costs of capital on the estimated price and volume indices of capital services. It asks how sensitive the results are to the use of exogenous versus endogenous rates of return, to alternate ways of including capital gains, and to whether corrections are made for tax rates. The paper also examines the effect of the various user cost formulae on the measured multifactor productivity growth.

Description:

This paper generates depreciation profiles for a diverse set of assets based on patterns of resale prices and retirements. In doing so, it explores the sensitivity of estimates of the growth in capital stock and capital services to alternate estimates of depreciation.

In the first instance, survival analysis techniques are used to estimate changes in valuation of assets over the course of their service life. In the second instance, a two-step procedure is utilized that first estimates the discard function for used assets (assets discarded at zero prices) and then uses the resulting estimates to correct for selection bias that arises when just positive used-asset prices are employed to estimate age-price profiles to produce depreciation rates. For the third method, a discard function and an asset efficiency function are jointly specified and estimated.

These three different methods produce depreciation profiles that follow convex patterns. Accelerated profiles are apparent for many individual assets in the machinery and equipment and structures classes.

We also compare the ex post estimates of length of life that are based on outcomes to ex ante expected lives and find they are much the same. We therefore choose ex ante lives along with information from the ex post rates on the rate of decline in an asset's value to generate a set of depreciation rates for use in the productivity accounts.

We then use our depreciation model to produce estimates of the growth in capital stock and capital services over the 1961 to 1996 period. We find that the resulting estimates of capital stock and capital services are quite similar to those previously produced.