Productivity

• Tracking Canadian Trend Productivity: A Dynamic Factor Model with Markov Switching

  Staff Discussion Paper 2007-12 Michael Dolega

  The author attempts to track Canadian labour productivity over the past four decades using a multivariate dynamic factor model that, in addition to the labour productivity series, includes aggregate compensation and consumption information. Productivity is assumed to switch between two regimes (the high-growth state and the low-growth state) with different trend growth rates according to […]

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Productivity JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, O, O4, O5, O51
• June 15, 2007

  Interpreting Canada's Productivity Performance in the Past Decade: Lessons from Recent Research

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2007 Richard Dion

  Dion examines the evolution of Canadian productivity since the mid-1990s, using the United States as a benchmark. During this period, trend productivity growth in Canada remained modest, whereas the U.S. witnessed a strong resurgence. Among the factors identified as potential root causes of Canada's lower productivity performance are a lower investment in information and communications technology, reallocation and adjustment costs associated with large relative price movements, and a weak demand for innovation.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Productivity, Recent economic and financial developments

• Firms Dynamics, Bankruptcy Laws and Total Factor Productivity

  Staff Working Paper 2007-17 Hajime Tomura

  This paper analyzes endogenous fluctuations in total factor productivity (TFP) in a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, and illustrates the interaction of credit market frictions, asset prices, the entry and exit of firms, and fluctuations in TFP in response to firm-level productivity and aggregate credit-market shocks. I also analyze the effect of bankruptcy and foreclosure laws on fluctuations in TFP through their effect on credit market frictions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial stability, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D2, D24, E, E4, E44, G, G3, G33

• Exporting and FDI with Endogenous Productivity

  Staff Working Paper 2007-14 Oana Secrieru, Marianne Vigneault

  This paper provides an analysis of how a firm’s decision to serve a foreign market by exporting or by engaging in foreign direct investment (FDI) affects firm productivity, when productivity is endogeneous as a function of training. The main result of our paper is that, with endogeneous productivity, exporting results in lower productivity than does FDI, but exporting may result in higher or lower employment and output than does FDI.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): International topics, Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): F, F2, F22, F23

• Schooling, Inequality and Government Policy

  Staff Working Paper 2007-12 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  This paper asks: What is the effect of government policy on output and inequality in an environment with education and labor-supply decisions? The answer is given in a general equilibrium model, consistent with the post 1960s facts on male wage inequality and labor supply in the U.S. In the model, education and labor-supply decisions depend on progressive income taxation, the education system, the social security system, and technology-driven wage differentials.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets, Potential output, Productivity JEL Code(s): H, H5, H52, J, J3, J31, J38