IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sls/ipmsls/v26y20134.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can the Canada-U.S. ICT Investment Gap be a Measurement Issue?

Author

Listed:
  • Vikram Rai
  • Andrew Sharpe

Abstract

In 2011, business sector investment per worker in information and communications technology (ICT) in Canada was only 57.8 per cent of the U.S. level, indicating an ICT investment per worker gap of 42.2 percentage points. Numerous explanations have been advanced to explain this gap, one of which is the ICT investment data from Statistics Canada and the Bureau of Economic Analysis are not strictly comparable. We compare the methodology used to measure ICT investment in Canada and the United States and find that issues related to measurement account for approximately 4 percentage points (10 per cent) of the gap. The gap is concentrated in the software component of ICT investment (90 per cent) and in a small number of ICT-intensive industries, in particular information and cultural industries. The article concludes that the Canada- U.S. ICT investment per worker gap is largely the result of industry-specific factors that affect software investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Vikram Rai & Andrew Sharpe, 2013. "Can the Canada-U.S. ICT Investment Gap be a Measurement Issue?," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 26, pages 63-85, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:26:y:2013:4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/26/IPM-26-Rai-Sharpe.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Sharpe, 2006. "The Relationship between ICT Investment and Productivity in the Canadian Economy: A Review of the Evidence," CSLS Research Reports 2006-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    2. Andrew Sharpe & Jean-François Arsenault, 2008. "ICT Investment and Productivity: A Provincial Perspective," CSLS Research Reports 2008-06, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    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. Jasmin Thomas, 2016. "New Evidence on the Canada-U.S. ICT Investment Gap, 1976-2014 Selected OECD Countries, 1986-2013," CSLS Research Reports 2016-17, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    2. Don Drummond & Evan Capeluck & Matthew Calver, 2015. "The Key Challenge for Canadian Public Policy: Generating Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth," CSLS Research Reports 2015-11, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    3. Jasmin Thomas, 2016. "Explaining Industry Differences in IT Investment Per Worker Between Canada and the United States, 2002-2013," CSLS Research Reports 2016-01, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.

    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. Andrew Sharpe, 2014. "What Explains the Canada-U.S. Software Investment Intensity Gap?," CSLS Research Reports 2014-04, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    2. Jasmin Thomas, 2016. "New Evidence on the Canada-U.S. ICT Investment Gap, 1976-2014 Selected OECD Countries, 1986-2013," CSLS Research Reports 2016-17, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    3. Andrew Sharpe & John Tsang, 2019. "A Detailed Analysis of Newfoundland and Labrador's Productivity Performance, 1997-2018," CSLS Research Reports 2019-06, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    4. Andrew Sharpe & Etienne Grand'Maison, 2013. "A Detailed Analysis of Newfoundland and Labrador's Productivity Performance, 1997-2010: The Impact of the Oil Boom," CSLS Research Reports 2013-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    5. Ricardo de Avillez, 2011. "A Detailed Analysis of the Productivity Performance of the Canadian Primary Agriculture Sector," CSLS Research Reports 2011-06, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    6. Jasmin Thomas, 2016. "Explaining Industry Differences in IT Investment Per Worker Between Canada and the United States, 2002-2013," CSLS Research Reports 2016-01, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    7. Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2012. "The Impact of Information and Communication Technology on the Productivity of the Canadian Transportation System: A Macroeconomic Approach for the Air and Rail Sectors," CSLS Research Reports 2012-07, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    8. Michelle Alexopoulos & Jon Cohen, 2012. "The Effects of Computer Technologies on the Canadian Economy: Evidence from New Direct Measures," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 23, pages 17-32, Spring.
    9. Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2013. "The Contribution of Broadband to the Economic Development of First Nations in Canada," CSLS Research Reports 2013-04, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    10. Andrew Sharpe & Ricardo de Avillez, 2012. "A Detailed Analysis of Nova Soctia;s Productivty Performance, 1997-2010," CSLS Research Reports 2012-05, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    11. Benoit Aubert & Blaize Horner Reich, 2009. "Extracting Value From Information Technologies," CIRANO Burgundy Reports 2009rb-04, CIRANO.

    More about this item

    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:sls:ipmsls:v:26:y:2013:4. 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: CSLS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cslssca.html .

    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.