The Impact of the Pandemic on Productivity Growth in
CanadaPress Release – Ottawa, December 16, 2020
The Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS) today released the latest issue of its flagshippublication, the International Productivity Monitor. The table of contents of the issue with links tothe articles is below. Three articles may be of particular interest to media.

•Joel Blit and Mikal Skuterud, both from the University of Waterloo, and Michael R.
Veall from McMaster University examine short-run changes in output, hours worked, andoutput per hour in 87 Canadian industries. They report that in April 2020 output per hour
was up 20.1 per cent over that of April 2018 as the fall in hour worked greatly exceededthat of real output. By August 2020 output per hour was up only 6.0 per cent over that ofAugust 2018 as by then firms had been able to adjust labour requirements with demand
for their output. The authors examine the role of three industry characteristics (proportionof employed who work from home, the health risk, and proportion of workers facingcustomers) in explaining industry productivity developments. Perhaps surprisingly, theyfind no evidence of association between these characteristics and productivity changes.

•Jianmin Tang from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada andWeimin Wang from Statistics Canada find that in 2011-2015, Canada enjoyed the second
fastest business sector labour and multifactor productivity growth among G7 countries
and experienced the largest acceleration in productivity growth compared to 2000-2010.

Manufacturing had made a very large negative contribution to aggregate productivity
growth in Canada in 2000-2010, due to the declining relative prices of manufactured
goods and the fall in the size of the sector. These negative contributions were much lessor reversed in 2011-2015, making manufacturing the driving force for the improvementin Canada’s aggregate productivity performance after the financial crisis.
•Bart van Ark, Managing Director at the UK Productivity Institute and Professor at theUniversity of Manchester and Tony Venables, Research Director at the Institute andProfessor at the University of Oxford provide an overview of the new UK Productivity
Institute, recently established by the UK government to address the country’s slow
productivity growth. Given that Canada faces the same challenge of weak economic andproductivity growth in Canada, this UK experience in creating a policy-oriented researchorganization dedicated to developing policies to foster economic growth is particularly
relevant.

International Productivity Monitor

Number 39, Fall 2020

Andrew Sharpe
Editor's Overview
Bart van Ark and Anthony J. Venables
A Concerted Effort to Tackle the UK Productivity Puzzle
Joel Blit, Mikal Skuterud and Michael R. Veall
The Pandemic and Short-Run Changes in Output, Hours Worked and Labour Productivity:
Canadian Evidence by Industry
Jianmin Tang and Weimin Wang
Industry Productivity Performance in G7 Countries After the Global Financial Crisis: A
Canadian PerspectiveDaniel Lind
A Vertically Integrated Perspective on Nordic Manufacturing Productivity
Gilbert Cette
What Do We Know About Economic and Productivity Growth? A Review Article
on Measuring Economic Growth and Productivity: Foundations, KLEMS Production
Models, and Extensions
Eric Santor
The Impact of Digitalization on the Economy: A Review Article on the NBER
Volume Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda