Friday, May 30 10:30-12:00 Session 1 Understanding and Improving Labour Market Statistics I Chair: Ian Stewart (Centre for the Study of living Standards) Papers: David Howell (New School University) "Unemployment, Underutilization, and Low Pay: Toward a Summary Measure of Employment Adequacy"  (628Kb) Lars Osberg (Dalhousie University) and Andrew Sharpe (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) "An Index of Labour Market Well-being for OECD Countries", in Microsoft Word format (150Kb). Discussants: Garnett Picot (Statistics Canada) Doug Smith (Carleton University)

Friday, May 30 14:00-15:30 Session 2 Understanding and Improving Labour Market Statistics II Chair: David Slater (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) Papers: Barry Bluestone (Northeastern University) and Andrew Sharpe (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) "Construction of a New Architecture for Labour Market Statistics: A Synthesis of the Bellagio Rockefeller-Ford Foundation International Project"  (368Kb) Barry Bluestone (Northeastern University) and Barbara Hamilton (Hamilton Analytics) "Toward a Better Measure of Labour Market Capacity: The Role of Hours in Aggregate Supply"  (432Kb) Discussants: Deborah Sunter (Statistics Canada) Craig Riddell (University of British Columbia)

Friday, May 30 16:00-17:30 Session 3 Industry Productivity Trends in Canada Chair: Dale Orr (Global Insight) Papers: Someshwar Rao (Industry Canada and Jianmin Tang (Industry Canada) "Productivity and Competitiveness Challenges Facing Canadian Industries"  (252Kb) John Baldwin (Statistics Canada) and Jianmin Tang (Industry Canada) "Contributions of SMEs to the Manufacturing Productivity Gap Between Canada and the United States"  (245Kb) Andrew Sharpe (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) "Productivity Trends in Natural Resources Industries in Canada"  (2856Kb) Discussants: Paul Davenport (University of Western Ontario) Lawrence Schembri (Bank of Canada) Andrew Baldwin (Statistics Canada)

Saturday, May 31, 10:30-12:00 (co-organized with the Progressive Economics Forum) Session 4 What Ever Happened to the Canada-US Unemployment Rate Gap? Chair: Andrew Sharpe (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) Papers: Andrew Sharpe (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) "Symposium on the Canada-U.S. Unemployment Rate Gap: An Introduction"  (17Kb) Geoff Bowlby (Statistics Canada) "Up North, Down South - Divergence in the Canadian and US Labour Markets"  (95Kb) Tiff Macklem (Bank of Canada) and Francisco Barillas (Bank of Canada) "Changing Patterns in Unemployment Incidence and Duration"  (111Kb) Craig Riddell (University of British Columbia) "Why Is Canada's Unemployment Rate Persistently Higher than that in the US?"  (96Kb) Jim Stanford (Canadian Auto Workers) "Revisiting the "Flexibility Hypothesis""  (105Kb)

Saturday, May 31 14:00-15:30 Session 5 Indexes of Economic and Social Well-being Chair: Ernie Stokes (Centre for Spatial Economics) Papers: Julia Salzman (Stanford University and the Centre for the Study of Living Standards) "Methodological Issues Encountered in the Construction of Indices of Economic and Social Well-being"  (722Kb Lars Osberg (Dalhousie University) and Andrew Sharpe (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) "Human Well Being and Economic Well Being: What Values are Implicit in Current Indices?"  (380Kb) Discussants: Erwin Diewert (University of British Columbia) Michael McCracken (Informetrica)

Sunday, June 1, 10:30-12:00 Session 6 Perspectives on Future Productivity Growth in Canada Chair: Andrew Sharpe (Centre for the Study of Living Standards) Panelists: Serge Coulombe (University of Ottawa) Tiff Macklem (Bank of Canada) Benoit Robidoux (Finance Canada) Tom Wilson (University of Toronto)