The objectives of this compilation of papers are to quantify the sources of economic growth at the industry level in Canada & the United States and to assess the relative competitiveness of Canadian & US industries. The first paper focusses on the recent revival of US economic growth, attributing the rise in growth to a surge of investment in computers, software, & communications equipment and to a jump in the growth rate of total factor productivity. The second paper adopts constant quality indices of capital & labour inputs to each of 122 industries studied in Canada. Five asset types and 168 labour input types are considered in an assessment of output growth and its sources. The third paper compares output growth between Canada & the US in 33 industries, aggregating capital input in both countries to four asset types so that the underlying data used in the study are compatible. The final paper focusses on international competitiveness between Canadian & US industries, first constructing purchasing power parities (PPPs) for output & inputs by industry, then using hourly labour compensation rates to estimate labour input PPPs. Appendices include additional papers on estimating output, capital services, labour input, productivity, capital inputs, workforce composition, and net capital stock & depreciation profiles.

This paper analyses the net effects of technology and import competition on employment, wages and wage inequality in the Canadian manufacturing sector over the period 1970-1990 by estimating reduced-form employment and wage equations. The analysis uses non-production and production workers to distinguish between two categories of labour. For each group, the number of person-hours worked, the level of employment and the hourly labour compensation by industry are examined.

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of the Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) on interprovincial trade. It first reviews some previous work on the effects of trading blocs on trade volumes. Section 3 contains aggregate evidence about the links between post-FTA movements in interprovincial trade and province-state trade. Section 4 analyzes new industry-level data designed to show whether the post-FTA changes in trade mix are consistent with interprovincial trade creation, trade diversion, or neither. Finally, Section 5 summarizes the two strands of evidence and sets some objectives for future research.