IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v55y2020icp12-25.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Technological frontier, technical efficiency and the post-2000 productivity slowdown in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Tang, Jianmin
  • Wang, Weimin

Abstract

We study the post -2000 productivity slowdown in Canada. Due to data limitation, the causes of the slowdown have not been studied systematically. Unlike most previous studies that focus directly on the actual productivity, in this paper we decompose the actual productivity into two components: technological frontier and technical efficiency. Technological frontier measures the maximum level of productivity potential related to firm-specific technology development while technical efficiency reflects the ability/technique in achieving the potential. Using a constructed rich micro data, we find that Canada's productivity slowdown cannot be largely explained by factors such as R&D, ICTs and intangibles that are considered to be important to productivity. Instead, we show that the productivity slowdown in Canada was mainly due to the retreat of aggregate technological frontier, driven by large and high-productivity firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Tang, Jianmin & Wang, Weimin, 2020. "Technological frontier, technical efficiency and the post-2000 productivity slowdown in Canada," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 12-25.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:55:y:2020:i:c:p:12-25
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2020.06.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X20303659
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2020.06.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John R. Baldwin & Wulong Gu & Beiling Yan, 2013. "Export Growth, Capacity Utilization, and Productivity Growth: Evidence from the Canadian Manufacturing Plants," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 665-688, December.
    2. Miles S. Kimball & John G. Fernald & Susanto Basu, 2006. "Are Technology Improvements Contractionary?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1418-1448, December.
    3. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    4. Carol Corrado & Charles Hulten & Daniel Sichel, 2005. "Measuring Capital and Technology: An Expanded Framework," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Capital in the New Economy, pages 11-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Carol Corrado & Charles Hulten & Daniel Sichel, 2009. "Intangible Capital And U.S. Economic Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(3), pages 661-685, September.
    6. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    7. Jianmin Tang, 2017. "Industrial structure change and the widening Canada–US labor productivity gap in the post-2000 period," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(2), pages 259-278.
    8. Jeff Mollins & Pierre St-Amant, 2018. "The Productivity Slowdown in Canada: an ICT Phenomenon?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 35, pages 95-112, Fall.
    9. Leonardo Rocha Andrade & Leonardo Q. Cardenas & Fernando Dias Lopes & Fernando P. S. Oliveira & Kaio Cesar Fernandes, 2018. "The Impact of R&D Investments on Performance of Firms in Different Degrees of Proximity to the Technological Frontier," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 1156-1170.
    10. Michele Battisti & Filippo Belloc & Massimo Del Gatto, 2015. "Unbundling Technology Adoption and tfp at the Firm Level: Do Intangibles Matter?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 390-414, June.
    11. Blanchard, Olivier & Lorenzoni, Guido & L’Huillier, Jean-Paul, 2017. "Short-run effects of lower productivity growth. A twist on the secular stagnation hypothesis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 639-649.
    12. Reifschneider, David & Stevenson, Rodney, 1991. "Systematic Departures from the Frontier: A Framework for the Analysis of Firm Inefficiency," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 32(3), pages 715-723, August.
    13. Gu, Wulong & Wang, Weimin, 2013. "Productivity Growth and Capacity Utilization," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2013085e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    14. David M. Byrne & John G. Fernald & Marshall B. Reinsdorf, 2016. "Does the United States Have a Productivity Slowdown or a Measurement Problem?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 109-182.
    15. Jianmin Tang, 2014. "Are small or large producers driving the Canada-U.S. labour productivity gap? Recent evidence from manufacturing," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(2), pages 517-539, May.
    16. Nadim Ahmad & Paul Schreyer, 2016. "Are GDP and Productivity Up to the Challenges of the Digital Economy?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 30, pages 4-27, Spring.
    17. Jianmin Tang, 2014. "Are small or large producers driving the Canada‐U.S. labour productivity gap? Recent evidence from manufacturing," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(2), pages 517-539, May.
    18. John H. Dunning, 1977. "Trade, Location of Economic Activity and the MNE: A Search for an Eclectic Approach," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Bertil Ohlin & Per-Ove Hesselborn & Per Magnus Wijkman (ed.), The International Allocation of Economic Activity, chapter 12, pages 395-418, Palgrave Macmillan.
    19. Jianmin Tang & Ari Van Assche, 2017. "Multinationals and Offshoring: Firm-Level Evidence from Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 43(s2), pages 1-14, April.
    20. Charles R. Hulten, 2000. "Total Factor Productivity: A Short Biography," NBER Working Papers 7471, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Erwin Diewert, 2000. "The Challenge of Total Factor Productivity," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 1, pages 45-52, Fall.
    22. Gilbert Cette & Christian Clerc & Lea Bresson, 2015. "Contribution of ICT Diffusion to Labour Productivity Growth: The United States, Canada, the Eurozone, and the United Kingdom, 1970-2013," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 28, pages 81-88, Spring.
    23. Dan Andrews & Chiara Criscuolo & Peter N. Gal, 2015. "Frontier Firms, Technology Diffusion and Public Policy: Micro Evidence from OECD Countries," OECD Productivity Working Papers 2, OECD Publishing.
    24. Weimin Wang, 2014. "Foreign Multinational Production in Canadian Manufacturing Sector," Transnational Corporations Review, Ottawa United Learning Academy, vol. 6(1), pages 26-41, March.
    25. David M. Byrne & Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2018. "How Fast are Semiconductor Prices Falling?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(3), pages 679-702, September.
    26. Decker, Ryan A. & Haltiwanger, John & Jarmin, Ron S. & Miranda, Javier, 2016. "Where has all the skewness gone? The decline in high-growth (young) firms in the U.S," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 4-23.
    27. Susanto Basu & Miles S. Kimball, 1997. "Cyclical Productivity with Unobserved Input Variation," NBER Working Papers 5915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Chad Syverson, 2017. "Challenges to Mismeasurement Explanations for the US Productivity Slowdown," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 165-186, Spring.
    29. Daniel E. Sichel, 2016. "Two Books for the Price of One: Review Article of The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert J. Gordon," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 31, pages 57-62, Fall.
    30. Yanling Wang, 2015. "Plant Characteristics and Control Changes: Does Parent Firm¡¦s Nationality Matter?," Transnational Corporations Review, Ottawa United Learning Academy, vol. 7(1), pages 44-60, March.
    31. Robert J. Gordon, 2012. "Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds," NBER Working Papers 18315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Someshwar Rao & Malick Souare & Weimin Wang, 2009. "The Economics of FDI: A Canadian Perspective," Transnational Corporations Review, Ottawa United Learning Academy, vol. 1(4), pages 28-41, December.
    33. Gu, Wulong & Wang, Weimin, 2013. "Correction for variations in capacity utilization in the measurement of productivity growth: A non-parametric approach," Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, IOS Press, issue 4, pages 347-369.
    34. Kumbhakar, Subal C & Ghosh, Soumendra & McGuckin, J Thomas, 1991. "A Generalized Production Frontier Approach for Estimating Determinants of Inefficiency in U.S. Dairy Farms," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(3), pages 279-286, July.
    35. Baldwin, John R. & Gu, Wulong & Macdonald, Ryan, 2012. "Intangible Capital and Productivity Growth in Canada," The Canadian Productivity Review 2012029e, Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division.
    36. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    37. Hung-Jen Wang, 2002. "Heteroscedasticity and Non-Monotonic Efficiency Effects of a Stochastic Frontier Model," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 241-253, November.
    38. Baldwin, John R. Gu, Wulong Yan, Beiling, 2007. "User Guide for Statistics Canada's Annual Multifactor Productivity Program," The Canadian Productivity Review 2007014e, Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division.
    39. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    40. Pekka Ilmakunnas & Hannu Piekkola, 2014. "Intangible investment in people and productivity," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 443-456, June.
    41. Liu, Huju & Tang, Jianmin, 2017. "Age-productivity profiles of entrants and exits: evidence from Canadian manufacturing," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 26-36.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jorge Antunes & Goodness C. Aye & Rangan Gupta & Peter Wanke & Yong Tan, 2020. "Endogenous Long-Term Productivity Performance in Advanced Countries: A Novel Two-Dimensional Fuzzy-Monte Carlo Approach," Working Papers 2020111, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    2. Yang, Zhenbing & Shao, Shuai & Yang, Lili, 2021. "Unintended consequences of carbon regulation on the performance of SOEs in China: The role of technical efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander Murray, 2017. "What Explains the Post-2004 U.S.Productivity Slowdown?," CSLS Research Reports 2017-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    2. Wulong Gu, 2018. "Accounting for Slower Productivity Growth in the Canadian Business Sector after 2000: The Role of Capital Measurement Issues," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 34, pages 21-39, Spring.
    3. Philippe Aghion & Antonin Bergeaud & Timo Boppart & Peter J. Klenow & Huiyu Li, 2019. "Missing Growth from Creative Destruction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2795-2822, August.
    4. Ian Goldin & Pantelis Koutroumpis & François Lafond & Julian Winkler, 2024. "Why Is Productivity Slowing Down?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 196-268, March.
    5. Roth, Felix, 2019. "Intangible Capital and Labour Productivity Growth: A Review of the Literature," Hamburg Discussion Papers in International Economics 4, University of Hamburg, Department of Economics.
    6. Elstner, Steffen & Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2018. "The German productivity paradox: Facts and explanations," Ruhr Economic Papers 767, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    7. Jorge Antunes & Goodness C. Aye & Rangan Gupta & Peter Wanke & Yong Tan, 2020. "Endogenous Long-Term Productivity Performance in Advanced Countries: A Novel Two-Dimensional Fuzzy-Monte Carlo Approach," Working Papers 2020111, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    8. David Byrne & Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2017. "Prices of high-tech products, mismeasurement, and the pace of innovation," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 52(2), pages 103-113, April.
    9. Roth, Felix & Sen, Ali & Rammer, Christian, 2021. "Intangible Capital and Firm-Level Productivity – Evidence from Germany," Hamburg Discussion Papers in International Economics 9, University of Hamburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Ryan A. Decker & John C. Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2018. "Changing Business Dynamism and Productivity: Shocks vs. Responsiveness," NBER Working Papers 24236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Marie Le Mouel & Alexander Schiersch, 2020. "Knowledge-Based Capital and Productivity Divergence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1868, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. W. Erwin Diewert & Kevin J. Fox, 2018. "A decomposition of US business sector TFP growth into technical progress and cost efficiency components," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 71-84, October.
    13. Jianmin Tang & Weimin Wang, 2023. "Capacity Utilization and Production Function Estimation: Implications for Productivity Analysis," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 45, pages 178-199, Fall.
    14. Diewert, Erwin & Fox, Kevin J., 2019. "Productivity Indexes and National Statistics: Theory, Methods and Challenges," Microeconomics.ca working papers erwin_diewert-2019-8, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 25 Apr 2019.
    15. Nicholas Oulton, 2016. "The Mystery of TFP," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 31, pages 68-87, Fall.
    16. Peter Bauer & Igor Fedotenkov & Aurelien Genty & Issam Hallak & Peter Harasztosi & David Martinez Turegano & David Nguyen & Nadir Preziosi & Ana Rincon-Aznar & Miguel Sanchez Martinez, 2020. "Productivity in Europe: Trends and drivers in a service-based economy," JRC Research Reports JRC119785, Joint Research Centre.
    17. Gilbert Cette & Aurélien Devillard & Vincenzo Spiezia, 2022. "Growth Factors in Developed Countries: A 1960–2019 Growth Accounting Decomposition," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(2), pages 159-185, June.
    18. Pierre-Alain Pionnier & Belén Zinni & Kéa Baret, 2023. "Measuring Capital and Multifactor Productivity: The Role of Asset Depreciation and Initial Capital Stock Estimates," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 45, pages 155-177, Fall.
    19. Alexander Murray, 2016. "Partial versus Total Factor Productivity: Assessing Resource Use in Natural Resource Industries in Canada," CSLS Research Reports 2016-20, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    20. Nakamura, Koji & Kaihatsu, Sohei & Yagi, Tomoyuki, 2019. "Productivity improvement and economic growth: lessons from Japan," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 57-79.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Technological frontier; Technical efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:55:y:2020:i:c:p:12-25. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/525148 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.