Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis paper shows that the higher small‐plant employment share in Canada compared with the United States mattered for the Canada‐U.S. manufacturing labour‐productivity gap, but it did not contribute to the widening of the gap between 2002 and 2007. In addition, it shows that while the weaker productivity performance of small plants in Canada compared with the United States accounted for much of the gap in a particular year, the deterioration in the productivity performance of large plants in Canada was responsible for most of the widening gap over this period.

AbstractMany commentators and researchers have attributed the manufacturing success in China to its ownership reforms. Using a micro database from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, this paper documents and quantifies this development. With systematic and robust analyses, it shows that the development of private ownership indeed played an essential role in improving firm performance and the allocation and utilization of production resources in the Chinese manufacturing sector. In addition, the paper estimates the contributions of firms under different ownership to manufacturing growth, showing that the development of private ownership was the driving force of manufacturing growth in China. The strong credible evidence has important policy implications for further maintaining sustainable development in China.

Abstract.  This paper studies the direct impact of labour force ageing on productivity growth in 10 Canadian provinces over the period 1981–2001, with an outlook to 2046. It shows that older workers are, on average, less productive than younger workers and that labour force ageing has a modest negative direct impact on productivity growth in Canada. The impact has increased since the middle of the 1990s, will peak in 2001–11, and tail off afterwards. During the peak period, productivity growth in Canada will be reduced by 0.13 to 0.23 percentage points per year, with Newfoundland being hit the hardest. JEL classification: J21, O47

Abstract.  In this paper we propose a decomposition technique to examine the sources of industrial contribution to aggregate labour productivity growth. We show that in terms of pure labour productivity growth, the manufacturing and service sectors contributed equally to the aggregate Canada‐U.S. labour productivity growth gap during the 1987–98 period. But, in terms of total industrial contributions, which also take into account the contributions from a change in relative size, the service sector was the largest contributor. We also find that high labour productivity growth industries did not attract resources from stagnant industries – a phenomenon consistent with Baumol's cost disease of stagnant industries. JEL Classification: O47, C43

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) have long been recognized as important pillars of Canada's national economy, accounting for the majority of its exports and an important share of its employment. At the same time, there is a widespread perception that MNEs are less rooted in the local economy and are thus more likely to conduct offshoring. In this study, we investigate the latter claim by combining various Canadian firm-level data sets. We find that MNEs (both Canadian and foreign headquartered) are indeed more likely to offshore but suggest that it is not necessarily because they are less rooted in the Canadian economy. We also show different associations between offshoring and firm characteristics (including productivity) depending on the type of offshoring (e.g., intrafirm or interfirm offshoring) and the type of business activity offshored (e.g., certain types of service vs. goods production).