In this chapter, Andrew Sharpe provides a comprehensive non-technical introduction to the productivity issue, including discussion of productivity concepts, measurement issues, trends and prospects. He begins by noting that productivity is the relationship between the output of goods and...

The Canadian service sector has performed well in recent years in terms of labour and multifactor productivity growth, both in absolute terms and relative to the United States, offsetting much of the poorer performance of the manufacturing sector. Service sector labour productivity growth has...

The foundation for real income growth is productivity growth. This basic principle of economics is well illustrated in this article by Andrew Sharpe of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards on the determinants of trends in living standards in Canada in the 1990s. He shows that over the...

Thist article by Andrew Sharpe and Leila Gharani from the Centre for the Study of Living Standards examines the factors behind slow productivity growth in Canada in the second half of the 1990s, in marked contrast to the acceleration of productivity in the United States, and discusses the...

This article, which is closely related to the previous article, is also by Andrew Sharpe of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards. It points out that there now appears to be a renaissance in productivity growth in the U.S. service sector, with output per worker growing five times faster...

Early 2001 saw the publication of two important contributions to the literature on productivity in Canada. In February, Statistics Canada released a research study entitled Productivity Growth in Canada, and in March, Industry Canada published a research monograph entitled Industry-level...

The economic slowdown of 2001 reduced productivity growth in both the United States and Canada. This development has raised the question of the sustainability or permanency of the pace of productivity growth experienced during the 1995-2000 period in the United States and the likelihood of...

The fourth issue of the International Productivity Monitor produced by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards contains five articles. Topics covered are: recent productivity developments in the United States and Canada and implications for the Canada-U.S. productivity and income gaps; the...

Puzzles intrigue and motivate researchers and focus research effort, and the productivity area is fortunate in having many unresolved issues. In the second article, Andrew Sharpe of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards puts forward and briefly discusses what he sees as the ten most...