Lessons for Canada from International Productivity Experience

The objective of this paper is to develop a more comprehensive understanding, from a policy perspective, of key drivers of labour productivity in selected OECD countries and their impact on enhanced productivity performance. The paper first presents some general lessons from the productivity performance of OECD countries and international evidence of productivity drivers based on the OECD growth project and productivity studies by the McKinsey Global Institute. It then briefly discusses the productivity experience of six OECD countries considered of particular interest to Canada — the United States, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Finland, and Sweden — and comments on possible lessons for Canada from these experiences.

[1]  Elhanan Helpman,et al.  International R&D spillovers , 1995 .

[2]  Dean Parham.  Productivity and Policy Reform in Australia , 2002 .

[3]  Productivity convergence across industries and regions in Norway and Sweden , 2004 .

[4]  W. W. Lewis.  The Power of Productivity , 2004 .

[5]  B. Walsh.  When Unemployment Disappears: Ireland in the 1990s , 2003, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[6]  Haishun Sun,et al.  Information Technology and Australia's Productivity Surge , 2001 .

[7]  David Card,et al.  What Have Two Decades of British Economic Reform Delivered? , 2002 .

[8]  W. W. Lewis.  The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty, and the Threat to Global Stability , 2004 .

[9]  Productivity Spillovers of R&D in Sweden , 2004 .

[10]  J. Tremblay,et al.  Literacy, Human Capital and Growth , 2004 .

[11]  B. Ark.  Understanding productivity and income differentials among OECD countries: a survey , 2002 .

[12]  Stephen D. Oliner,et al.  Information technology and productivity: where are we now and where are we going? , 2002 .

[13]  What Explains the Canada-US ICT Investment Gap? , 2005 .

[14]  A. Jackson.  Productivity and Building Human Capital for the "Bottom Third" , 2005 .

[15]  Andrew Sharpe,et al.  Ten Productivity Puzzles Facing Researchers , 2004 .

[16]  Mark Cassidy,et al.  Productivity in Ireland: Trends and Issues , 2004 .

[17]  Bart van Ark,et al.  The Contribution of ICT-Producing and ICT-Using Industries to Productivity Growth: A Comparison of Canada, Europe and the United States , 2003 .

[18]  P. Howitt.  Endogenous Growth, Productivity and Economic Policy: A Progress Report , 2004 .

[19]  A. Sharpe.  Why Are Americans More Productive Than Canadians , 2003 .

[20]  Jianmin Tang,et al.  The Contribution of ICTs to Productivity Growth in Canada and the United States in the 1990s , 2001 .

[21]  Jack E. Triplett,et al.  The Early 21st Century U.S. Productivity Expansion is Still in Services , 2007 .

[22]  Linda Andersson.  Essays on Job Turnover, Productivity and State-Local Finance , 2002 .

[23]  Matthew Kellison.  The McKinsey Global Institute Productivity Studies: Lessons for Canada , 2004 .

[24]  Peter J. Nicholson.  The Growth Story: Canada's Long-run Economic Performance and Prospects , 2003 .

[25]  Erkki Koskela,et al.  The economic crisis of the 1990s in Finland , 1999 .

[26]  D. Jorgenson,et al.  Raising the Speed Limit: U.S. Economic Growth in the Information Age , 2000 .

[27]  Stephen D. Oliner,et al.  The Resurgence of Growth in the Late 1990s: Is Information Technology the Story? , 2000 .

[28]  Dale W. Jorgenson,et al.  Raising the Speed Limit , 2000 .

[29]  A. Sharpe.  Productivity Concepts, Trends And Prospects: An Overview , 2002 .

[30]  Roy Thurik,et al.  Erim Report Series Research in Management What's New about the New Economy? Sources of Growth in the Managed and Entrepreneurial Economies Bibliographic Data and Classifications , 2022 .

[31]  M. Baily,et al.  Transforming the European Economy , 2004 .

[32]  E. Brynjolfsson,et al.  Computing Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence , 2003, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[33]  Richard P. Green,et al.  Seeking a Premier-League Economy , 2004 .

[34]  The Contribution of Information Technology to Productivity Growth -International Comparison- , 2001 .

[35]  Reinhilde Veugelers,et al.  Assessing innovation capacity: Fitting strategy, indicators and policy in the right framework , 2006 .

[36]  E. Brynjolfsson,et al.  Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance , 2000 .

[37]  E. Wolff.  Productiivity Convergence among OECD Countries: The Postwar Experience , 2000 .

[38]  P. Niininen.  Computers and Economic Growth in Finland , 1998 .

[39]  Dean Parham,et al.  Sources of Australia's Productivity Revival , 2004 .

[40]  Brian Kahin,et al.  Assessing Innovation Capacity: Fitting Strategy, Indicators, and Policy to the Right Framework , 2006 .

[41]  Paul Schreyer,et al.  The OECD Productivity Manual: A Guide to the Measurement of Industry-Level and Aggregate Productivity , 2001 .

[42]  Tarek M. Harchaoui,et al.  Productivity Growth in Canada , 2002 .

[43]  Michael T. Kiley,et al.  Computers and Growth with Costs of Adjustment: Will the Future Look Like the Past? , 1999 .

[44]  G. Cette.  Are Productivity Levels Higher in Some European Countries than in the United States , 2005 .

[45]  G. Notaro,et al.  ICT, Output and Productivity Growth in the United Kingdom: A Sectoral Analysis , 2004 .

[46]  J. Baldwin,et al.  The Impact of Self-Employment on Labour-Productivity Growth: A Canada and United States Comparison , 2003 .

[47]  Jeremy P. Smith,et al.  Labour Market Seasonality in Canada: Trends and Policy Implications , 2005 .

[48]  D. Pilat.  Canada's Productivity Performance in International Perspective , 2005 .

[49]  Thorvaldur Gylfason.  Understanding Economic Growth , 1998 .

[50]  Lessons for Canada from the U.S. Growth Resurgence , 2003 .

[51]  J. Baldwin,et al.  A Comparison of Canadian and U.S. Productivity Levels: An Exploration of Measurement Issues , 2005 .

[52]  Jianmin Tang,et al.  Measuring the Canada-U.S. Productivity Gap: Industry Dimensions , 2004 .

[53]  D. Jorgenson.  Information Technology and the U.S. Economy , 2001 .

[54]  The Source of Economic Growth in OECD Countries: A Review Article , 2003 .

[55]  Jack E. Triplett,et al.  What's New About the New Economy? IT, Economic Growth and Productivity , 2001 .

[56]  Richard R. Nelson,et al.  The sources of economic growth , 1996 .

[57]  Elad Gafni.  The Diffusion and Adoption of Advanced Technologies in Canada: An Overview of the Issues , 2005 .

[58]  R. Morck,et al.  The Economic Determinants of Innovation , 2000 .

[59]  Jeremy P. Smith,et al.  An Analysis of the Labour Productivity Growth Slowdown in Canada since 2000 , 2005 .

[60]  Is IT Driving the U.S. Productivity Revival , 2001 .

[61]  A. Sharpe.  Recent Productivity Developments in Canada and the United States: Productivity Growth Deceleration versus Acceleration , 2004 .

[62]  N. Oguchi.  Productivity Trends in Asia Since 1980 , 2005 .

[63]  Michael E. Porter,et al.  Assessing Australia's Innovative Capacity in the 21 st Century , 2003 .

[64]  Patrick Honohan,et al.  Catching Up with the Leaders: The Irish Hare , 2002 .

[65]  P. Fortin.  The Irish Economic Boom: What Can We Learn? , 2001 .

[66]  D. Pilat.  Productivity Growth in the OECD Area: Some Recent Findings , 2001 .

[67]  D. Jorgenson.  Economic growth in the information age , 2002 .

[68]  A. Börsch-Supan.  Boosting Dutch Economic Performance , 1997 .

[69]  R. Gordon.  Why Was Europe Left at the Station When America's Productivity Locomotive Departed? , 2004 .

[70]  Andrew Sharpe,et al.  Centre for the Study of Living Standards , 1999 .