Comparisons of Canada’s economy to that of the United States are done for several purposes. On the one hand, analysts are interested in whether there is an output gap between the two countries — whether Canada is as well off as the United States in terms of the quantities of goods and...

This paper examines the influence of the self-employed on the growth in labour productivity in the business sector. There has been a dramatic expansion of self-employment in the Canadian economy over the 1987 to 1998 period. In addition, a comparison is made of Canadian and United States...

This paper examines the trend in the importance of small producers in the Canadian and U.S. manufacturing sectors from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. It finds similar trends in both countries. Small plants increased their share of employment up to the 1990s but their share remained stable in...

This paper has three main objectives. First, it examines the level of multifactor productivity (MFP) in Canada relative to that of the United States for the 1994-to-2003 period. Second, it examines the relative importance of differences in capital intensity and MFP in accounting for the labour...

Official data from statistical agencies are not always ideal for cross-country comparisons because of differences in data sources and methodology. Analysts who engage in cross-country comparisons need to carefully choose among alternatives and sometimes adapt data especially for their purposes....

This paper compares long-run growth in labour productivity in Canada and the United States from 1961 to 2006. Over the entire period labour productivity in both countries grew at about the same rate. But Canadian growth exceeded that of the United States up to the early 1980s. Since then, U.S....