New Estimates of Multifactor Productivity Growth for the Canadian Provinces

• Main Authors: Andrew Sharpe, Jean-francois Arsenault
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.485.4920; http://www.csls.ca/ipm/18/ipm-18-Sharpe-Arsenault.pdf

This article presents new estimates of multifactor productivity for the Canadian provinces for the 1997-2007 period. In contrast to earlier estimates, these estimates incorporate both changes in labour and capital composition or quality. Reflecting differences in labour productivity and capital productivity, multifactor productivity growth varies greatly by province. Newfoundland enjoyed the strongest multifactor productivity growth and Alberta the weakest. THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS ARTICLE is to present new estimates of multifactor productivity (MFP) or total factor productivity2 for the Canadian provinces. In contrast to previous estimates of MFP (e.g. CSLS, 2008), these esti-mates for the first time take account of changes in labour composition or quality and changes in capital composition or quality. The estimates have been prepared by Statistics Canada for the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS), which received financial support from Alberta Finance and Enterprise in producing this report. The estimates are posted on the CSLS website (www.csls.ca/data/mfp.asp) for free public access. This report is divided into three main sec-tions. The first section provides a brief overview of the methodologies and data sources used by Statistics Canada to construct the provincial multifactor productivity database. The third section presents the new estimates of labour productivity, capital productivity, multifactor productivity, labour composition or quality, and sources of growth by province. The third and final section concludes.