Labour productivity of unincorporated sole proprietorships and partnerships : Productivité du travail des entreprises individuelles et des sociétés de personnes non constituées : incidence sur l'écart de productivité entre le Canada et les États-Unis

The level of uncertainty will depend on several factors: the nature of the functional form used in the multivariate analysis; the type of econometric technique employed; the appropriateness of the statistical assumptions embedded in the model or technique; the comprehensiveness of the variables included in the analysis; and the accuracy of the data that are utilized. [...] As a result, when the unincorporated sector is removed from the estimates for the business sector in each country and only the corporate sectors for the two countries are compared, the gap in the level of productivity between Canada and the United States is reduced. [...] From 1998 to 2005, the level of productivity of the unincorporated sector in Canada relative to the unincorporated sector in the United States remained about the same; however, the relative productivity of the corporate sector fell. [...] When sole proprietorships are removed from the estimates of labour productivity in the business sector of each country (thereby permitting a Canada–United States comparison of sole proprietorships and the rest of the business sector, consisting of partnerships and the corporate sector), the gap in labour productivity between Canada and the United States of the self- employed declines. [...] As was the case with the unincorporated sector as a whole, the productivity of sole proprietorships in Canada relative to the productivity of sole proprietorships in the United States remained steady in the period from 1998 to 2005, while the productivity of the rest of the business sector (made up of corporations and partnerships) declined.