APRIL 2012

The Three Wedges That Separate Workers From Their Pay
Bloomberg Businessweek -- April 27,2012

In 1994, economists Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein were first to point out the gap that was already opening up between pay (low) and productivity (high). Bernstein later served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist and is now a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Mishel is president of the Economic Policy Institute.

Now, Mishel has done the most careful study to date of what accounts for the productivity/pay gap. He wrote a blog post called “Understanding the wedge between productivity and median compensation growth” on April 26. He also has a longer article on the EPI website. And if that’s not enough, there’s a technical article by Mishel and Kar-Fai Gee of Canada’s Center for the Study of Living Standards published in that center’s International Productivity Monitor.

International Productivity Monitor article mentioned:
Why Aren’t Workers Benefiting from Labour Productivity Growth in the United States?, Number 23, Spring, 2012

How government should play the innovation game
The Ottawa Citizen -- April 24,2012

Here’s a book you may want to have a look at when it’s published next month by the University of Toronto Press. It’s called Innovation Reinvented: Six Games that Drive Growth, by Marcel Côté and Roger Miller. Côté is a founding partner of Secor, the Montreal business consultancy, and was a senior adviser in both Ottawa and Quebec City during the Mulroney-Bourassa years. Roger Miller is a prof at the École polytechnique de Montréal.

In part, the book is about the age-old question of Canada’s lagging productivity. If you want a preview, there’s a short version in the latest issue of the Ottawa-based International Productivity Monitor — which, granted, doesn’t sound like a page-turner but in this case rewards effort, well, very productively.

International Productivity Monitor article mentioned:
Stimulating Innovation: Is Canada Pursuing the Right Policies?, Number 23, Spring, 2012

Canadian government doing fine job of smothering competition
The Gazette -- April 14, 2012

A new study published this week in the Ottawa-based International Productivity Monitor points to Canadians' laggardly use of new computer technology as a key factor in the growing gap between business productivity in the U.S. and Canada.

Economists Michelle Alexopoulos and Jon Cohen at the University of Toronto conclude that the impact of new computer technology in Canada has lagged since the early 1970s, with a gap in total factor productivity opening up shortly afterward.

International Productivity Monitor article mentioned:
The Effects of Computer Technologies on the Canadian Economy: Evidence from New Direct Measures, Number 23, Spring, 2012

'Culture of comfort' the enemy of innovation, report says
The Globe and Mail -- April 12, 2012

On April 12, 2012, the Centre for the Study of Living Standards released the Spring 2012 issue of the International Productivity Monitor. The lead article Stimulating Innovation: Is Canada Pursuing the Right Policies? by Marcel Côté and Roger Miller from Secor argues that current policies to promote business innovation in Canada are not working and develops a new framework for understanding innovation.

Other articles are on new direct measures of the use of computer technologies in Canada and the United States and implications for Canadian productivity growth; the reasons behind the large divergence between labour productivity and real median wage growth in the United States over the 1973-2011 period; the relationship between educational attainment, employment rates and productivity in OECD countries; and the treatment in the national accounts of measures of volume output for education and health services.

International Productivity Monitor article mentioned:
Stimulating Innovation: Is Canada Pursuing the Right Policies?, Number 23, Spring, 2012

Ottawa’s Rising Firewall:Public service veterans sound the alarm on federal opacity
Literary Review of Canada -- April, 2012

CSLS publication mentioned:
New Directions for Intelligent Government in Canada: Papers in Honour of Ian Stewart, September, 2011

FEBURARY 2012

Hill Dispatches: Keeping good jobs in Canada
rabble.ca -- February 6, 2012

"Last year, Drummond wrote an article he entitled "Confessions of a Serial Productivity Researcher" in which he admits that most of the supposedly pro-productivity policies he has urged on government have not had any significant positive effect".

"And yet, Drummond writes in his piece for the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, Canada's productivity, measured by "output per hour worked," has not improved. It has, in fact, declined when compared to other similar countries".

International Productivity Monitor article mentioned:
Confessions of A Serial Productivity Reseracher, Number 22, Fall, 2011

Canada Income Inequality: Study Shows Government Policies Growing Less Effective At Narrowing Gap
The Huffington Post -- February 2, 2012

"As debate about income inequality mounts, a new study underscores how important public investment in social programs like education and health care is in narrowing the rich-poor divide".

CSLS report mentioned in this article:
A Comparison of Inequality and Living Standards in Canada and the United States Using an Expanded Measure of Economic Well Being

JANUARY 2012

One’s chance at success shouldn’t be dictated by birth
Ottawa Citizen -- January 19, 2012

Reducing Income Disparities and Polarization
"Of the papers in this section, only one - that by Andrew Sharpe- suggests a significant rethink of the income support system that has been in place, with little change, for more than 20 years. Sharpe argues that our system should be underpinned by an equality of opportunity agenda, in which greater efforts are made to smooth out both financial and human capital starting points. At present, by contrast, we have a system that takes unequal starting point as a given, focussing instead on correcting the subsequent excesses of market allocations".

Andrew Sharpe's paper Income Redistribution in Canada is available on page 17.