Editors’ Overview
This 40th issue of the International Productivity Monitor (IPM) marks a major
milestone in the development of the publication, with the Ottawa-based Centre for
the Study of Living Standards now partnering with The Productivity Institute inthe UK. The IPM will now serve as the flagship publication of both organizations.
Starting with this issue, Bart van Ark will join Andrew Sharpe as co-Editor ofthe IPM. Bart is a well-known international productivity researcher who recently
assumed the position of Managing Director of The Productivity Institute in the UK.
He is also a professor of Productivity Studies at the Alliance Manchester Business
School at the University of Manchester.

This issue contains seven articles: Re-come.

search articles address pay and productivity trends in Canada; the benchmarkingof the productivity performance of frontier

New Zealand has long followed themarket-oriented policy prescriptions given by international organizations. But

firms in New Zealand; the cause of Japan’s
economic slowdown; and the measurement

it has seen no productivity payoff, ranking 25th out of 36 OECD countries inof the volume of output and productivity
in services industries in OECD countries.
The issue also contains a viewpoint on whyterms of output per hour growth since
2000. To shed light on this puzzle, thesecond article by Guanyu Zheng from

Canada needs an Equitable Growth Institute and review articles on books on efficiency and productivity issues in the UK

the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Hoang
Minh Duy from the National Universityof Singapore, and Gail Pacheco fromand techniques for the measurement of productivity.
Governments, and society in general, areAuckland University of Technology and
the New Zealand Productivity Commission
compares the relative productivity perfor-

increasingly insisting that economic growthmust be equitable in nature. A key feature of an inclusive growth path is thatmance of New Zealand’s laggard, median,and frontier firms to those of five small
advanced economies. Perhaps not surpris-

workers receive their fair share of productivity gains. In the lead article in the is-ingly, New Zealand firms fare poorly, withthe labour productivity of frontier firmssue, David M. Williams from the Business Council of British Columbia provides adetailed examination of long-term produc-less than half the average productivity ofsuch firms in comparator countries. Thesefirms appear not to be benefiting from thetivity and pay trends in Canada. He findsthat growth in the average real consumption wage has in fact more or less kept up

diffusion of best practice technologies.
After very rapid economic growth in theimmediate postwar period, the Japanesewith labour productivity growth over the
1961-2019 period, although there were divergences in sub-periods. This largely re-economy entered a period of secular stagnation in the 1990s. The reasons for thiseconomic stagnation are still not fully un-

flected the stability of labour’s share of in-derstood. In the third article in this issue,INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY MONITOR

1

Kyoji Fukao from Hitotsuboshi University, YoungGak Kim from Senshu Uni-tablish an Equitable Growth Institute toaddress both the productivity challengeversity, and HyeogUg Kwon from Nihon
University use the Japan Industrial Productivity Database to shed light on theand the need for inclusive and environmentally sustainable growth.
In the sixth article Bart van Ark fromcause of Japan’s economic slowdown. Theauthors identified the absolute decline inthe size of the working age population (15-the University of Manchester and The Productivity Institute discusses two edited volumes recently produced by the UK Produc-64), sluggish accumulation of capital, weak
investments in economic competencies, andtivity Insights Network. The first volume
addresses the nature and causes of the UK

a decline in TFP growth in a small numberof industries, as the key culprits responsible for the slowdown in economic growth inproductivity slowdown from an interdisciplinary perspective. The second volume focuses on the implications of the pandemic

2005-2015 relative to 1995-2005.
Reliable volume estimates of output inservice industries require accurate datafor productivity. Many contributors argue
for policy intervention to prevent permanent damage on productivity after the pan-on services prices to deflate nominal output measures. But do statistical offices
in OECD countries measure services pro-demic and create better conditions for asustained productivity revival. Building on
the insights from the 37 articles in the twoducer process in a consistent and reliable
manner? In the fourth article, MaryO’Mahony from King’s College London

volumes, the reviewer develops a detailed
agenda for UK research and policy on productivity going forward.

and Lea Samek from the OECD andKing’s College London address this issue

In the seventh article, Bert Balk
from Erasmus University discusses the vol-through an audit of prices for 31 individual
services activities posted on the websites of
the national statistical offices in 16 OECDume Measurement of Productivity and Efficiency: Theory and Practice by Robin C.
Sickles and Valentin Zelenyuk. He finds

countries. They find a small but significant
upward bias in prices for one widely used
price measurement method, resulting in themuch to praise in the book, particularly its
thoroughness. Balk notes a disconnect between productivity researchers in the neo-underestimation of the volume of services
output and productivity.
Many countries have a government-

classical school, who assume firms act efficiently, and researchers in the data envelopment and stochastic frontier analysis

funded research body to promote productivity growth. Canada does not. In thefifth article, Don Drummond from thefield where the focus is on efficiency andthe many ways to measure it. He wonders whether economists working with theCentre for the Study of Living Standards
and Queen’s University makes that casefirst approach pay sufficient attention to
the work of those using the second.

that the government of Canada should es-2

NUMBER 40, SPRING 2021