New Economy: Using National Accounting Architecture to Estimate the Size of the High-technology Economy

This paper illustrates how the statistical architecture of Canada's System of National Accounts can be utilized to study the size and composition of a specific economic sector. For illustrative purposes, the analysis focuses on the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and hence, on the set of technology-producing industries and technology outputs most commonly associated with what is often termed the high-technology economy. Using supply and use tables from the input-output accounts, we develop integrated ICT industry and commodity classifications that link domestic technology producers to their principal commodity outputs. We then use these classifications to generate a series of descriptive statistics that examine the size of Canada's high-technology economy along with its underlying composition. In our view, these integrated ICT classifications can be used to develop a richer profile of the high-technology economy than one obtains from examining its industry or commodity dimensions in isolation.