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The Industry Origins of Canada's Weaker Labour Productivity Performance and the Role of Structural Adjustment in the Post-2000 Period

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  • John R. Baldwin
  • Michael Willox

Abstract

This article examines how much of the slowdown in labour productivity growth observed in Canada's business sector after 2000 was due to weaker productivity growth within industries and how much was due to structural adjustment. The analysis makes use of a decomposition method that differs from many of the standard decomposition approaches commonly found in the literature and allows for the contributions of changes in the importance of individual industries to be calculated. The approach reveals that the post-2000 slowdown was attributable entirely to weaker productivity growth within industries and that structural adjustment had a slight mitigating effect on the slowdown. Lower productivity growth within three industries - manufacturing; finance, insurance and real estate; and mining, oil and gas - accounted for all of the slowdown in business sector labour productivity growth in the 2000s.

Suggested Citation

  • John R. Baldwin & Michael Willox, 2016. "The Industry Origins of Canada's Weaker Labour Productivity Performance and the Role of Structural Adjustment in the Post-2000 Period," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 31, pages 19-36, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:31:y:2016:2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. John R. Baldwin & Wulong Gu & Beiling Yan, 2013. "Export Growth, Capacity Utilization, and Productivity Growth: Evidence from the Canadian Manufacturing Plants," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 665-688, December.
    2. Jianmin Tang & Weimin Wang, 2004. "Sources of aggregate labour productivity growth in Canada and the United States," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 421-444, May.
    3. Andrew Sharpe & Celeste Bradley, 2009. "A Detailed Analysis of the Productivity Performance of Oil and Gas Extraction in Canada," CSLS Research Reports 2009-08, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    4. William D. Nordhaus, 2000. "Alternative Methods for Measuring Productivity Growth," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1282, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    5. Gu, Wulong & Wang, Weimin, 2013. "Productivity Growth and Capacity Utilization," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2013085e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    6. Andrew Sharpe & Bert Waslander, 2014. "The Impact of the Oil Boom on Canada's Labour Productivity Performance," CSLS Research Reports 2014-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    7. Michael-John Almon & Jianmin Tang, 2011. "Industrial Structural Change and the Post-2000 Output and Productivity Growth Slowdown: A Canada-U.S. Comparison," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 22, pages 44-81, Fall.
    8. John R. Baldwin & Wulong Gu, 2006. "Plant turnover and productivity growth in Canadian manufacturing," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 417-465, June.
    9. Andrew Sharpe, 2010. "Can Sectoral Reallocations of Labour Explain Canada’s Absymal Productivity Performance?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 19, pages 40-49, Spring.
    10. Marshall Reinsdorf, 2015. "Measuring Industry Contributions to Labour Productivity Change: A New Formula in a Chained Fisher Index Framework," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 28, pages 3-26, Spring.
    11. Andrew Sharpe & Bert Waslander, 2014. "The Impact of the Oil Boom on Canada's Labour Productivity Performance, 2000-2012," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 27, pages 40-63, Fall.
    12. Baldwin, John R. & Raffiquzzaman, Mohammed, 1995. "Restructuring in the Canadian Manufacturing Sector from 1970 to 1990: Industry and Regional Dimensions of Job Turnover," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1995078e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    13. Kevin J. Stiroh, 2002. "Information Technology and the U.S. Productivity Revival: What Do the Industry Data Say?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1559-1576, December.
    14. John R. Baldwin & Wulong Gu & Beiling Yan, 2013. "Export Growth, Capacity Utilization, and Productivity Growth: Evidence from the Canadian Manufacturing Plants," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 665-688, December.
    15. Baldwin, John R. & Gu, Wulong & Macdonald, Ryan & Yan, Beiling, 2014. "Productivity: What Is It? How Is It Measured? What Has Canada's Performance Been Over the Period 1961 to 2012?," The Canadian Productivity Review 2014038e, Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division.
    16. Andrew Sharpe & Eric Thomson, 2010. "Insights into Canada’s Abysmal Post-2000 Productivity Performance from Decompositions of Labour Productivity Growth by Industry and Province," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 20, pages 48-67, Fall.
    17. Bert Balk, 2014. "Dissecting aggregate output and labour productivity change," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 35-43, August.
    18. Ricardo de Avillez, 2012. "Sectoral Contributions to Labour Productivity Growth: Does the Choice of Decomposition Formula Matter?," CSLS Research Reports 2012-09, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
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    Cited by:

    1. Wulong Gu, 2018. "Accounting for Slower Productivity Growth in the Canadian Business Sector after 2000: The Role of Capital Measurement Issues," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 34, pages 21-39, Spring.
    2. Alexander Murray, 2017. "What Explains the Post-2004 U.S.Productivity Slowdown?," CSLS Research Reports 2017-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    3. Alexander Murray, 2018. "What Explains the Post-2004 U.S. Productivity Slowdown?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 34, pages 81-109, Spring.
    4. Wulong Gu & Michael Willox, 2018. "Productivity Growth in Canada and the United States: Recent Industry Trends and Potential Explanations," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 35, pages 73-94, Fall.
    5. Matthew Calver and Alexander Murray, 2016. "Decomposing Multifactor Productivity Growth in Canada by Industry and Province, 1997-2014," CSLS Research Reports 2016-19, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Productivity Growth; Productivity Strategies; Labour Productivity; Canada;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • 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

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