Explaining Slower Productivity Growth in Canada
Press Release – Ottawa, January 9, 2019
The Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS) today released the latest issue of its
flagship publication, the International Productivity Monitor. The table of contents of the issue
with links to the articles is below.
The issue contains a symposium on explaining lower productivity growth in Canada.
Given the importance of productivity for meeting the challenges of an aging population andlower population growth, it is crucial to understand the causes of weak productivity growth forthe development of policies to improve this situation. Key findings from the symposium arehighlighted below.
Andrew Sharpe and John Tsang from the CSLS point out that Canada has in fact
experienced two slowdowns in long-term productivity, after 1973 when output per hour growth
fell 1.6 percentage points, and after 2000 when it fell an additional 0.6 points to 0.9 per cent peryear. In terms of the post-2000 slowdown they identify the goods sector, especiallymanufacturing, as largely responsible for the slowdown. Productivity growth in most service
industries has in fact picked up after 2000.
Wulong Gu and Michael Willox from Statistics Canada examine productivity
performance in Canada and the United States, finding that much weaker growth in the computersand electronics sector in Canada accounted for one third of the slower multifactor productivity
growth in this country over the 1987-2010 period. They also observe that since 2010 Canada’s
productivity performance has been better than that of the United States due, in part, to the greaterwaning of the productivity gains from information and communications technologies (ICT) southof the border.
Jeff Mollins and Pierre St-Amant from the Bank of Canada find that a weakercontribution from ICT to labour productivity growth accounted for 20-40 per cent of theslowdown in the 2000s, but that this impact was only felt since the Great Recession of 20082009.
Michele Alexopoulos and Jon Cohen from the University of Toronto find that a fall-off
in the commercialization of new technologies in this county after 2000, as evidenced by bookbased indicators of technological change, contributed to slower productivity growth.

International Productivity Monitor
Number 35, Fall 2018

CoverMasthead

Table of Contents

Andrew Sharpe
Editor's Overview

Richard Schmalensee
Puzzles and Surprises in Employment and Productivity in U.S. Manufacturing After the GreatRecession

Jaana Remes, Jan Mischke and Mekala Krishnan
Solving the Productivity Puzzle: The Role of Demand and the Promise of Digitization

Symposium on Explaining Slower Productivity Growth in Canada

Andrew Sharpe and John Tsang

The Stylized Facts about Slower Productivity Growth in Canada
Appendix

Wulong Gu and Michael Willox
Productivity Growth in Canada and the United States: Recent Trends and Potential
Explanations
Appendix

Jeff Mollins and Pierre St-Amant
The Productivity Slowdown in Canada: an ICT Phenomenon?
AppendixMichelle Alexopoulos and Jon Cohen
Canadian Productivity Growth, Secular Stagnation, and Technological Change
Appendix

What Do We Know about the Global Productivity Slowdown?

John Fernald
Is Slow Productivity and Output Growth in Advanced Economies the New Normal?

Kevin Fox
What Do We Know About the Productivity Slowdown? Evidence from Australian Industry
Data

For further information, please contact:
Andrew Sharpe
Executive Director
Centre for the Study of Living Standards
613-233-8891
andrew.sharpe@csls.ca
The Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS) is a national, independent, Ottawa-basednot-for-profit research organization. Its primary objective is to contribute to a better
understanding of trends and determinants of productivity, living standards, and economic wellbeing in Canada through research.