资本设备投资不足阻碍加拿大生产率增长

ITIF CENTRE FOR CANADIAN INNOVATION AND COMPETITIVENESS|MAY 2025CONTENTSKey Takeaways................................................................................................................... 1Introduction....................................................................................................................... 2Productivity ....................................................................................................................... 3Capital Investment ............................................................................................................. 5Capital Stocks.................................................................................................................. 10Depreciation .................................................................................................................... 16Adoption of Robotics ........................................................................................................ 17Adoption of AI.................................................................................................................. 18U.S. Comparison .............................................................................................................. 20Causes for declining capital expenditures ........................................................................... 23Policy Implications ........................................................................................................... 27Appendix......................................................................................................................... 29Methodology .................................................................................................................... 31Endnotes......................................................................................................................... 32INTRODUCTIONCanada is in the midst of a productivity crisis, with labour productivity increasing just 10 percentover the last decade. And with the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner by asignificant margin, threatening a trade war, labour productivity matters more than ever in order toprotect economic competitiveness, sustain living standards, and preserve strategic autonomy.Yet, despite widespread awareness of the problem, the reasoning for Canada’s poor productivityperformance remains a mystery, with many explanations offered, including inadequate spendingon research and development (R&D), too much low-skilled immigration, regulatory burden,interprovincial trade barriers, and of course, limited capital investment.The most important step policymakers should take to turn around the productivity crisis is tomove beyond conjecture to in-depth analysis of why most Canadian organizations are failing toadequately raise productivity, that is to say, their output per hour worked. This should include adeeper analysis into the drivers and performance of capital investment.While there are many drivers of labour productivity, the most important is better “tools,”particularly new machinery, equipment, and software.1There is a general consensus thatCanadian organizations invest too little in these tools.2In an era when Canadian firms will haveto compete more broadly on the global market because of reduced trade with the United States,this underinvestment is a strategic vulnerability, leaving Canadian firms less able to adapt andsucceed. PAGE 2 ITIF CENTRE FOR CANADIAN INNOVATION AND COMPETITIVENESS|MAY 2025PAGE 3This report examines the role of capital investment in Canadian productivity growth. It finds thatCanadian industries, overall, aren’t investing enough in productive capital expenditures (software,industrial machinery, and computers and electronics). Addressing the capital investmentconundrum requires a multifaceted solution, with both broad-based and tailor-made strategiesfor each industry.PRODUCTIVITYCanada’s labour productivity performance (output per worker hour) has been dismal. This can beseen by comparing Canadian labour productivity growth with that of the United States. From1983 to 2003, this U.S. growth was 78 percent faster than Canada’s. Yet, from 2003 to 2023,U.S. growth in labour productivity was an astounding 148 percent faster. (Seefigure 1). Whileboth economies’ growth rates fell in the latter period, America’s productivity declined by 34percent, while Canada’s declined by an astonishing 52 percent!Figure 1: United States and Canadian labour productivity growth rates, 1983–2003 vs. 2003–20233Between 2000 and 2022, U.S. labour productivity, despite also experiencing a slowdown inrecent decades, grew at an annualized rate of 1.5 percent while Canada’s grew by only 1percent. (Seefigure 2.)4Figure 3provides the same data with both countries’ productivity indexed to 2017. As shown,the United States grew faster for both periods—although from 2010 to around 2016, Canada’sgrowth kept pace—only to face an even sharper decline since