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Current Trends in the Analysis of Canadian Productivity Growth

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  • Simon van Norden

Abstract

For more than a decade, debates over the impact of new information technologies on trend productivity growth rates have played a key role in the formulation of monetary policy in many countries, including the United States and Canada. However, the question of whether the trend growth rate of aggregate productivity has changed significantly is rarely examined formally. This paper examines the latest aggregate labour productivity data for Canada using a new testing approach specifically designed to detect recent changes in trends. In addition to showing the strength of the evidence for changes in long-run trends, it considers the effect that data revision and changing sample period has had on inference about structural changes. In an appendix, it investigates how large such changes must be before they can be detected and to what degree detection tends to lag the structural change. Evidence of a decline in the trend rate of labour productivity growth in Canada since 1990 is mixed. In particular, conclusions vary considerably from year to year as data are revised and as the accumulation of observations after purported breaks changes initial perceptions. The instability of test results suggest that policymakers need to use extreme caution in interpreting claims of changes in labour productivity trends and highlight the uncertainty that they face. Pour plus d'une décennie, les débats sur l'impact des technologies de l'information sur les taux de croissance tendanciel de la productivité ont joué un rôle clé dans la formulation de la politique monétaire dans de nombreux pays, y compris les États-Unis et le Canada. Toutefois, la question de savoir si le taux de croissance tendanciel de la productivité globale a changé considérablement est rarement examinée formellement. Cet article examine les données les plus récentes de productivité du travail pour le Canada en utilisant une approche de nouveaux tests spécialement conçus pour détecter les changements récents dans les tendances. En plus de démontrer la force de la preuve aux changements des tendances à long terme, il considère l'effet que la révision des données et la variation des périodes d'échantillonnage a eu sur l'inférence au sujet des changements structurels. Dans un appendice, il examine la taille que les changements doivent avoir avant de pouvoir être détectés et dans quelle mesure la détection a tendance à entraîner des changements structurels. L'évidence pour une baisse du taux de croissance tendanciel de la productivité du travail au Canada depuis 1990 est mitigée. En particulier, les conclusions varient considérablement d'une année à l'autre à cause de la révision des données et l'accumulation d'observations. L'instabilité des résultats des tests indique que les décideurs doivent faire preuve de prudence extrême dans l'interprétation des changements dans les tendances de la productivité au travail et mettre en évidence l'incertitude à laquelle ils sont confrontés.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon van Norden, 2010. "Current Trends in the Analysis of Canadian Productivity Growth," CIRANO Working Papers 2010s-30, CIRANO.
  • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2010s-30
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    Cited by:

    1. Jan P. A. M. Jacobs & Simon van Norden, 2010. "Lessons from the latest data on U.S. productivity," Working Papers 11-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    2. Jacobs, Jan P.A.M. & van Norden, Simon, 2016. "Why are initial estimates of productivity growth so unreliable?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB), pages 200-213.

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    Keywords

    Productivity growth; detrending; breakpoints; structural change; data revision ; croissance de la productivité; changements structurels; révision des données;
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