Productivity

• How Changes in Oil Prices Affect the Macroeconomy

  Staff Working Paper 2009-33 Brian DePratto, Carlos De Resende, Philipp Maier

  We estimate a New Keynesian general-equilibrium open economy model to examine how changes in oil prices affect the macroeconomy. Our model allows oil price changes to be transmitted through temporary demand and supply channels (affecting the output gap), as well as through persistent supply side effects (affecting trend growth).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Interest rates, Monetary policy transmission, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): F, F4, F41, Q, Q4, Q43

• Productivity, the Terms of Trade, and the Real Exchange Rate: The Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis Revisited

  Staff Working Paper 2009-22 Ehsan U. Choudhri, Lawrence L. Schembri

  The paper examines how the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis is affected by a modern variation of the standard model that allows product differentiation (within the traded and nontraded goods sectors) with the number of firms determined exogenously or endogenously.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rates, Productivity JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F4, F41

• Household Debt, Assets, and Income in Canada: A Microdata Study

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-7 Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima, David Xiao Chen, Thomas J. Carter

  The authors use microdata from the 1999 and 2005 Surveys of Financial Security to identify changes in household debt, and discuss their potential implications for monetary policy and financial stability. They document an increase in the debt-income ratio, which rose from 0.75 to 0.95, on average.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Financial stability, Productivity, Sectoral balance sheet JEL Code(s): E, E2, E21, E24
• June 11, 2009

  The Changing Pace of Labour Reallocation in Canada: Causes and Consequences

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2009 Danny Leung, Shutao Cao

  The number of job gains and losses across firms in Canada each year is roughly one-fifth the total number of jobs and generally occurs within sectors (industries) rather than across sectors. Since labour reallocation within sectors has been strongly related to productivity growth in Canada, defining the key drivers of this type of reallocation is important, given the higher rates of reallocation and productivity growth in the Untied States than in Canada. This article finds that the appreciation of the Canadian dollar and rising commodity prices led to above-average reallocation of labour across sectors over the 2005-08 period, but that the impact on productivity has been minor. Labour reallocation across firms, however, generates substantial labour productivity gains in manufacturing and the business sector as a whole.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Labour markets, Productivity

• Relative Prices, Trading Gains, and Real GDI: The Case of Canada

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-4 Yi Zheng

  Treating imports as intermediate inputs to domestic production, the author adopts the translog function approach to model real gross domestic income (GDI) in Canada over the 1961–2006 period. She explores the role of price ratios, such as terms of trade and the real effective exchange rate, in explaining changes in real GDI, trade openness, trade […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Productivity JEL Code(s): C, C4, C43, D, D3, D33, F, F1, F10, O, O4, O47

• What Accounts for the U.S.-Canada Education-Premium Difference?

  Staff Working Paper 2009-4 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  This paper analyzes the differences in wage ratios of university graduates to less than university graduates, the education premium, in Canada and the United States from 1980 to 2000. Both countries experienced a similar increase in the fraction of university graduates and a similar increase in skill biased technological change based on capital-embodied technological progress, but only the United States had a large increase in the education premium.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E25, J, J2, J24, J3, J31

• Firm Size and Productivity

  Staff Working Paper 2008-45 Danny Leung, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima

  This paper examines the relationship between firm size and productivity. In contrast to previous studies, this paper offers evidence of the relationship not only from manufacturing firms, but from non-manufacturing firms as well.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Productivity JEL Code(s): L, L1, L11, L2, L25, O, O4, O47

• A Model of Costly Capital Reallocation and Aggregate Productivity

  Staff Working Paper 2008-38 Shutao Cao

  The author studies the effects of capital reallocation (the flow of productive capital across firms and establishments mainly through changes in ownership) on aggregate labour productivity. Capital reallocation is an important activity in the United States: on average, its total value is 3–4 per cent of U.S. GDP.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E2, E22, L, L1, L16

• Human Capital Risk and the Firmsize Wage Premium

  Staff Working Paper 2008-33 Danny Leung, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  Why do employed persons in large firms earn more than employed persons in small firms, even after controlling for observable characteristics? Complementary to previous results, this paper proposes a mechanism that gives an answer to this question.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): J, J2, J24, J3, J31
• September 15, 2008

  Productivity in Canada: Does Firm Size Matter?

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2008 Danny Leung, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima

  The research findings highlighted in this article suggest that firm-size differences play a significant role in explaining the productivity gap between Canada and the United States. The authors review factors that lead to a positive relationship between productivity and size and then look at Canadian evidence of this relationship at the firm level. They quantify the extent to which the change in Canadian productivity as well as the Canada-U.S. productivity differences can be accounted for by the change in the importance of large firms and identify several factors that play a role in determining average firm size and aggregate productivity.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Productivity