The Canada-US ICT Investment Gap: An Update

In 2005, the CSLS published a report that examined spending on information and communication technology (ICT) in Canada and the United States between 1987 and 2004. It found that Canadian firms lagged considerably behind US firms in ICT spending and that this situation accounted to some extent for the lower labour productivity growth experienced in Canada. This report provides an overview of the latest developments using the most recent update of the CSLS ICT database. It finds that ICT investment spending in the United States in 2005 and 2006 continued to outpace that in Canada, increasing an average of 5.6 per cent annually in the United States compared to 3.3 per cent in Canada when expressed in current dollars. Following this trend, nominal ICT investment per worker in domestic currencies also grew faster in the United States than in Canada in 2005 and 2006, 3.7 per cent versus 1.6 per cent. The recent increase in the Canadian dollar, however, lead to a sharper decrease in ICT prices in Canada than in the United States over the 2004-2006 period. This in turn led to an increase in the level of PPP-adjusted ICT investment per worker in Canada relative to the United States from 56.5 per cent in 2004 to 58.0 per cent in 2006, continuing the positive trend started in 2000 when it stood at 49.0 per cent. While Canada’s steady relative improvement since 2000 in terms of ICT investment per worker is encouraging, the low relative level of ICT investment per worker remains problematic and should be of concern to policy-makers as ICT investment is a key driver of productivity growth.Machinery and equipment investment, information and communications technology, ICT, Investment gap, Business sector, Industrial structure, Firm size

Living Standards Domain of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing

This paper, which represents the living standards domain of the new Canadian Index of Wellbeing, provides a comprehensive overview of trends in a number of indicators of living standards over the 1981-2008 period in Canada. Part one examines trends in average and median income and wealth indicators in Canada. Part two looks at the distribution of the income and wealth of Canadians over time, including trends in poverty. Part three discusses trends in income fluctuations or volatility. Part four analyzes trends in the economic security of Canadians, including labour market security, food security, housing security, and the security provided by the social safety net. The report also presents a synthesis of overall trends in living standards, discusses living standard measurement issues, and puts forward a set of headline indicators to capture the essentials of what has been happening to the living standards of Canadians. Finally, the report comments on the sustainability of current levels of living standards. The report provides a comprehensive examination of a large number of indicators of living standards in Canada over the last quarter century and has identified a number of these indicators as headline indicators for the new Canadian Index of Wellbeing. The bottom line is that Canada has become a much richer country, but the top quintile has received the lion’s share of rising income and wealth. Looking at the nine headline indicators for which time series are available, one can immediately see that living standards of Canadians have not unambiguously improved between 1981 and 2008. Indeed, Canadians experienced a widening of income and wealth inequalities. There have been poverty reductions, but the reductions were not nearly as large as the increase in wealth inequality. The unemployment rate is down to a record low for the 1981-2008 period, and yet the incidence of long-term unemployment is higher now than in 1981. Economic security measured by the CSLS index has also fallen, spurred by a significant decrease in economic security caused by the financial risk associated with illness. Since 1981, many dimensions of living standards in Canada have not improved, and that in spite of a 52.6 per cent surge in gross domestic product per capita. Looking forward, the challenges for Canada’s policymakers are significant, but need to be tackled if Canada is to become a fairer, healthier and richer country.Living standards, quality of life, income, housing affordability, wealth, inequality, poverty, productivity, employment quality, net worth, income, disposable income, low income, labour market, economic security, employment, unemployment

The Economic Crises Through the Lens of Economic Well-being

This report looks at how the economic crisis has unfolded in Canada and what will be the impacts on economic wellbeing. The shortfall is estimated to be approximately $12,000 ($2007) per capita. In other words, given no economic crisis, GDP per capita in Canada would have likely been $1,736 higher on average each year over the 2008-2014 period. Between October 2008 – the month at which employment peaked in Canada – and May 2009, net employment fell by 362,500 persons. The negative effects of unemployment go well beyond loss of income. Roughly 60 per cent of the newly unemployed, compared to about 40 per cent in recent years, receive regular EI benefits, reflecting the concentration of employment losses among long term full-time employees (e.g. auto workers). Based on the experience of the recession of the early 1990s, we should expect an increase of about 4 percentage points in the after-tax poverty rate, which would reach 13.2 per cent in 2010.Living standards, quality of life, income, housing affordability, wealth, inequality, poverty, productivity, employment quality, net worth, income, disposable income, low income, labour market, economic security, employment, unemployment

A Review of the Potential Impacts of the Métis Human Resources Development Agreements in Canada

Since 1999, thousands of Métis have received training and found employment through Métis Human Resources Development Agreements (MHRDAs). We estimate MHRDA activities’ annual fiscal impact, which includes higher tax revenue,lower government transfers, mostly in the form of EI and social assistance, and lower health expenditures. Based on results from the 2007-2008 fiscal year, we estimate the annual fiscal impact of one year of activity to be between $4.2 and$47.9 million, with a higher probability associated to the lower-bound estimate than the upper-bound estimate.On a long-term basis, the discounted fiscal benefits outweigh program costs (about $49 million for one year of activity) in all cases but the one based on a the lower-bound estimate and highest discount rate. Our middle-bound estimate suggests annual fiscal benefits of$8.5 million, with long-term benefits reaching $103 million. Given that benefits from Métis training and employment encompass more than what is captured in this analysis, the return from the MHRDA for Canadian society appears to be well worth the investment.Métis Human Resources Development Agreements, MHRDA, Métis, skills, human capital, government program, Aboriginal , labour market

Productivity Drivers in British Columbia: Strategic Areas for Improvement

A brief analysis of British Columbia’s productivity performance and the state of the drivers of this performance reveals that five areas merit additional focus and research. They are, in the proposed order of completion: Education and literacy, including professional qualifications and education for targeted groups such as aboriginals and recent immigrants, credentials recognition. Public and private investment, including public infrastructure, business investment and taxation structure. Research and innovation, including R&D investment, product and process innovation, knowledge diffusion and technology adoption. Resource reallocation, including competition policy, improving market mechanisms, product market regulation and foreign ownership rules. Trade and migration, including interprovincial and international movement of goods and services, skilled and unskilled immigration and emigration and interprovincial migration.Productivity, Diagnosis, British Columbia,Human Capital, Physical Capital, Innovation,

ICT Investment and Productivity: A Provincial Perspective

In 2008, Statistics Canada, for the first time, made available estimates of information and communication technology (ICT) investment by province. Given the importance of ICT investment for productivity growth, these data are important for the comparative analysis and understanding of productivity growth by province. The objective of this report is to present the basic data on ICT investment and ICT investment per worker in Canada and the ten provinces over the 1981-2007 period. The first part of the report reviews the literature on why ICT investment is important for productivity. The second part examines ICT investment levels and trends by province. The third part decomposes the gap in ICT investment per worker by province, relative to the national average, into three effects: that related to income levels, to the total investment/GDP share, and to the ICT investment/total investment share.Machinery and equipment investment, information and communications technology, ICT, Investment gap, Business sector, Provincial estimates

The Effect of Increasing Aboriginal Educational Attainment on the Labour Force, Output and the Fiscal Balance

Investing in disadvantaged young people is one of the rare public policies with no equity-efficiency tradeoff. Based on the methodology developed in Sharpe, Arsenault and Lapointe (2007), we estimate the effect of increasing the educational attainment level of Aboriginal Canadians on labour market outcome and output up to 2026. We build on these projection to estimate the potential effect of eliminating educational and social gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people on government spending and government revenues using population and economic projections to 2026.Aboriginal, Education, Canada, Forecast of economic growth, Equity and efficiency.

The Valuation of the Alberta Oil Sands

The Alberta oil sands reserves represent a very valuable energy resource for Canadians. In 2007, Statistics Canada valued the oil sands at $342.1 billion, or 5 per cent Canada's total tangible wealth of$6.9 trillion. Given the oil sands' importance, it is essential to value them appropriately. In this report, we critically review the methods used by Statistics Canada in their valuation of the Alberta oil sands. We find that the official Statistics Canada estimates of the reserves (22.0 billion barrels) of Alberta's oil sands are very small compared to those obtained using more appropriate definitions, which results in an underestimation of the true value of the oil sands. Moreover, the failure to take into account the projected growth of the industry significantly magnifies this underestimation. We provide new estimates of the present value of oil sands reserves based on a set of alternative assumptions that are, we argue, more appropriate than those used by Statistics Canada. We find that the use of more reasonable measures of the total oil sands reserves (172.7 billion barrels), extraction rate (a linear increase from 482 million barrels per year in 2007 to 1,350 million barrels in 2015, and constant thereafter) and price ($70 per barrel, 2007 CAD) increases the estimated present value of the oil sands to$1,482.7 billion (2007 CAD), 4.3 times larger than the official estimate of $342.1 billion. Using our preferred estimate, Canada’s total tangible wealth increases by$1.1 trillion (17 per cent), and reaches $8.0 trillion with oil sands now accounting for 18 per cent of Canada’s tangible wealth. The importance of these revisions is also demonstrated by their impact on the per-capita wealth of Canadians, which increases from$209,359 to $243,950, or by$34,591 (or 17 per cent). Given the importance of the oil sands for Canada, Statistics Canada should undertake a review of its methodology. In light of the growing body of climatologic literature supporting an association between anthropogenic GHG emissions and global climate change, no analysis of the „true value? of the oil sands would be complete without an accounting of the social costs of the GHG emissions that arise from oil sands development. According to our baseline estimates, the oil sands impose a total social cost related to GHG emissions of $69.4 billion. In making this estimate, we assume that each barrel of oil sands output imposes a social cost of$2.25 (based on a cost of $30/tCO2-e and an intensity of 0.075 tCO2-e/bbl). Our preferred estimate of the net present value of oil sands wealth net of GHG cost is thus$1,413.3 billion, 4.1 times greater than the Statistics Canada estimate which does not account for any environmental costs. This report does not account for non-GHG related environmental and social costs. A comprehensive valuation of all environmental costs are needed to assess whether future benefits derived from oil sands development are outweighed by even larger environmental costs.Cost-Benefit, Oil Sands, Environmental Damage, CO2 Emissions, Alberta, Energy, Natural Resources, Valuation

Apprenticeship Issues and Challenges Facing Canadian Manufacturing Industries

The apprenticeship system is generally associated with the construction industry. However, the manufacturing industry actually employs a greater amount of persons in apprenticeable occupations than construction. With the rise in value of the Canadian dollar and increased international competition from developing countries, manufacturing industries must increasingly invest in the skills of their workers. Apprenticeship training is often viewed as a possible solution to this challenge. The objective of this report is to discuss issues related to skilled labour shortages and to apprenticeship in manufacturing. The report finds that in recent years the manufacturing sector has suffered from low output and employment growth. In contrast with these findings, the manufacturing sector is reporting increasing shortages of skilled labour. These conflicting indicators suggest that skills shortages in the manufacturing sector are a result of a strong overall labour market rather than dependent on sector specific developments. Growing skills shortages underline the importance for the manufacturing to train and retain employees despite the poor market conditions prevailing in the sector. In this context, apprenticeship programs are highly relevant to the manufacturing sector as 14 per cent of its workforce is in apprenticeable occupations. However, strong growth in the number of apprentices in manufacturing has not been followed by a commensurate increase in the number of completions. Much needs to be done if the apprenticeship system is to significantly foster the international competitiveness of the Canadian manufacturing sector through the development of a highly skilled workforce.Apprenticeship, Apprenticeship completion rates, Trades, Canadian manufacturing developments, Manufacturing apprenticeships, Skilled labour shortage, Government policy, Labour Market Information (LMI)

Integrin α8β1 regulates adhesion, migration and proliferation of human intestinal crypt cells via a predominant RhoA/ROCK-dependent mechanism

Background. Integrins are transmembrane αβ heterodimer receptors that function as structural and functional bridges between the cytoskeleton and ECM (extracellular matrix) molecules. The RGD (arginine-glycine-aspartate tripeptide motif)-dependent integrin α8β1 has been shown to be involved in various cell functions in neuronal and mesenchymal-derived cell types. Its role in epithelial cells remains unknown