Purvis Prize Honourable Mention

This past year Canada has seen some extreme fluctuations in our economy, raising questions of uncertainty and cautions, one in particular being productivity.

Pau Pujolas, Associate Professor for the Department of Economics, and Oliver Loertscher, recent PhD graduate published a paper this year titled, “Canadian Productivity Growth: Stuck in the Oil Sands”, discussing just that.

Pujolas and Loertscher submitted these findings to the Doug Purvis Memorial Prize, an award for a work of excellence relating to Canadian Economic Policy. In years previous this prize has gone to research involving Child Tax Benefits on Poverty and Labor Supply, in 2024, “Environmental Regulations and the Cleanup of Manufacturing: Plant-Level Evidence” by our very own Jevan Cherniwchan, and more. Many years the committee awards an honourable mention to one or two research papers that signify important research within the economic community, and this year, the honourable mention was awarded for Pujolas and Loertscher’s research of the impacts the Oil Sands have on skewing our understanding of productivity growth. 

Interested in knowing more? Read the paper here.

Abstract 

We study the behaviour of Canadian Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth over the past 60 years. We find that the observed stagnation during the last 20 years is entirely accounted for by the Oil sector. Higher oil prices made capital-intensive sources of oil like the oil sands viable to extract on a commercial scale. However, the greater input required per barrel of oil slowed TFP growth. Comparing Canadian TFP growth to those of the United States and Norway reinforces these results. However, our result should not be interpreted to carry any welfare implications.

Want to keep up with Pau and Oliver?

Pau Pujolas
BlueSky
Website

Oliver Loertscher
Website