Productivity: What Is It? How Is It Measured? What Has Canada's Performance Been?

John Baldwin

The Canadian Productivity Review from Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Business performance and ownership; Economic accounts; Productivity accounts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-02-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-eff
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:stc:stcp6e:2008017e

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