Frank Graves (President, EKOS Research Associates) Richard Jenkins (Senior Consultant, EKOS Research Associates)
Abstract
In this chapter, Graves and Jenkins explore the attitudes of Canadians to productivity. The distinction between our standard of living and our quality of life is a powerful one for Canadians generally. The economic citizen who emerges from Graves and Jenkins data is relatively aware of the terms of the productivity debate. Canadians appear to have a broadly optimistic view of the economy, but give the country only a lukewarm overall rating of its productivity. Moreover, although improved productivity does not rank as highly as health care, education, the environment and crime prevention, the public does see it as an important goal, qualified by some scepticism. Nevertheless, the Canadian public's attitude towards productivity is qualified by a commitment to a broader sense of the quality of life. Graves and Jenkins report that Canadians place considerably higher emphasis on quality of life as a goal as compared with a high standard of living when these are traded off. This attitude also influences the public's reaction to policy debate about the productivity agenda. As well, in their words, "there is a significant gap in the understanding of how productivity should be dealt with between the residents of the boardrooms and the residents of the family rooms of Canada".
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML,
plain text,
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote),
ReDIF This chapter was published in: Andrew Sharpe, Executive Director & France St-Hilaire, Vice-President , Research & Keith Banting, Director (ed.) The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2002: Towards a Social Understanding of Productivity, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2002.
Find related papers by JEL classification: O51 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - U.S.; Canada J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: