IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sls/ipmsls/v5y20021.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Widening Canada-US Productivity Gap in Manufaturing

Author

Listed:
  • Jeffrey I. Bernstein
  • Richard G. Harris
  • Andrew Sharpe

Abstract

In this article, Jeffrey I. Bernstein of Carleton University, Richard G. Harris from Simon Fraser University, and Andrew Sharpe from the Centre for the Study of Living Standards provide a comprehensive analysis of the widening of the Canada-US manufacturing productivity gap. Since 1994, labour productivity growth in manufacturing in the United States has greatly exceeded that recorded in Canada. Output per hour in Canada fell 20 percentage points from 87 per cent of the US level in 1994 to 67 per cent in 2001. This development has been responsible for most of the widening of the aggregate Canada-US labour productivity gap. The authors find that the growth in the gap largely reflects the acceleration of productivity growth in US high-tech manufacturing sector. The Canadian high-sector is smaller than its US counterpart and experienced much weaker productivity growth. It is estimated that these two factors themselves account for 70 per cent of the widening of the gap over the 1994-2000 period. Faster growth in capital intensity of production in the United States also played a complementary role in the growth of the gap, a development in part fostered by the greater increase in the price of labour relative to that of investment goods in the United States than in Canada. This was due to slower labour compensation growth and, to a lesser extent, a smaller decline in the price of investment goods in Canada. The depreciation of the value of the Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar played some role in this latter development. The authors conclude that Canadian economic policies have not directly contributed in any significant manner to the widening of the gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey I. Bernstein & Richard G. Harris & Andrew Sharpe, 2002. "The Widening Canada-US Productivity Gap in Manufaturing," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 5, pages 3-22, Fall.
  • Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:5:y:2002:1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/5/mfg-e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/5/mfg-f.pdf
    File Function: version en francais, pp:3-24
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John R Baldwin & Ron S Jarmin & Jianmin Tang, 2002. "The Trend to Smaller Producers in Manufacturing in Canada and the U.S," Working Papers 02-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Baldwin, John R. Jarmin , Ron S. Tang, Jianmin, 2002. "The Trend to Smaller Producers in Manufacturing: A Canada/U.S. Comparison," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2002003e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baldwin, John R. Gu, Wulong, 2005. "Global Links: Multinationals, Foreign Ownership and Productivity Growth in Canadian Manufacturing," The Canadian Economy in Transition 2005009e, Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division.
    2. Someshwar Rao & Andrew Sharpe & Jianmin Tang, 2004. "Productivity Growth in Service Industries: A Canadian Success Story," CSLS Research Reports 2004-01, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    3. Andrew Sharpe, 2007. "Lessons for Canada from International Productivity Experience," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 14, pages 20-37, Spring.
    4. John R. Baldwin & W. Mark Brown & Wulong Gu, 2012. "Geographic market access and the effects of trade on length of production run, product diversity and plant scale of Canadian manufacturing plants, 1974--1999," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 455-484, March.
    5. Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2003. "Productivity Trends in Natural Resources Industries in Canada," CSLS Research Reports 2003-01, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    6. Someshwar Rao & Jianmin Tang & Weimin Wang, 2003. "Canada's Recent Productivity Record and Capital Accumulation," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 7, pages 24-38, Fall.
    7. Don Drummond & Evan Capeluck & Matthew Calver, 2015. "The Key Challenge for Canadian Public Policy: Generating Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth," CSLS Research Reports 2015-11, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    8. Jeremy Smith, 2004. "Assessing Aggregate Labour Productivity Trends in Canada and the United States: Total Economy versus Business Sector Perspectives," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 8, pages 47-58, Spring.
    9. Jeremy Smith, 2004. "Aggregate Labour Productivity Growth in Canada and the United States: Definitions, Trends and Measurement Issues," CSLS Research Reports 2004-04, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    10. Lin Shao & Rongsheng Tang, 2021. "Allocative Efficiency and Aggregate Productivity Growth in Canada and the United States," Staff Working Papers 21-1, Bank of Canada.
    11. Andrew Sharpe, 2003. "Why are Americans More Productive than Canadians?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 6, pages 19-37, Spring.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baldwin, John R. Gu, Wulong, 2008. "Outsourcing and Offshoring in Canada," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2008055e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    2. Tuan Anh Luong, 2012. "The between firm effect with multiproduct firms," Globalization Institute Working Papers 122, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    3. Mark Doms & Ron Jarmin & Shawn Klimek, 2004. "Information technology investment and firm performance in US retail trade," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(7), pages 595-613.
    4. Fallahi, Firouz & Sakineh, Sojoodi & Mehin Aslaninia, Nasim, 2010. "Determinants of Labor Productivity in Iran’s Manufacturing Firms: With Emphasis on Labor Education and Training," MPRA Paper 27447, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Jennifer Abel-Koch, 2013. "Who Uses Intermediaries in International Trade? Evidence from Firm-level Survey Data," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(8), pages 1041-1064, August.
    6. Andrew Sharpe, 2003. "Why are Americans More Productive than Canadians?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 6, pages 19-37, Spring.
    7. Clymo, AJ, 2017. "Heterogeneous Firms, Wages, and the Effects of Financial Crises," Economics Discussion Papers 20572, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    8. Chandan Sharma, 2018. "Productivity and Size of Firms: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 791-798.
    9. Baldwin, John R. Caves, Richard Gu, Wulong, 2005. "Réactions à la libéralisation des échanges : changements observés au niveau de la diversification des produits dans les usines sous contrôle étranger et canadien," Série de documents de recherche sur l'analyse économique (AE) 2005031f, Statistics Canada, Direction des études analytiques.
    10. Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2003. "Productivity Trends in Natural Resources Industries in Canada," CSLS Research Reports 2003-01, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    11. John R. Baldwin & Richard E. Caves & Wulong Gu, 2005. "Responses to Trade Liberalization: Changes in Product Diversification in Foreign- and Domestic-Controlled Plants," Chapters, in: Lorraine Eden & Wendy Dobson (ed.), Governance, Multinationals and Growth, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. John Baldwin & W. Brown, 2004. "Regional manufacturing employment volatility in Canada: The effects of specialisation and trade," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 83(3), pages 519-541, July.
    13. Shawn D Klimek & Ron S Jarmin & Mark E Doms, 2002. "IT Investment and Firm Performance in U.S. Retail Trade," Working Papers 02-14, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    14. Andrew Sharpe, 2003. "Why are Americans More Productive than Canadians?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 6, pages 19-37, Spring.
    15. Julien Hanoteau & Jean‐Jacques Rosa, 2019. "Information technologies and entrepreneurship," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(2), pages 200-212, March.
    16. Zhang, Feng & Park, Timothy A., 2004. "Computer Adoption Patterns Of U.S. Small Businesses," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20250, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    17. Jean-Jacques Rosa & Julien Hanoteau, 2012. "The Shrinking Hand: Why Information Technology Leads to Smaller Firms," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 285-314, July.
    18. Abdoulaye Kané, 2022. "Measurement of total factor productivity: Evidence from French construction firms," EconomiX Working Papers 2022-9, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Canada; United States; Manufacturing; Labor Productivity; Labour Productivity; Productivity; Employment; Capital Intensity; Technological Change; Innovation; High-Tech; Capacity; Cyclical; Investment; Relative Price; Relative Price of Labour; Relative Price of Investment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O51 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - U.S.; Canada
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:5:y:2002:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CSLS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cslssca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.