A regional perspective on the Canada-U.S. standard of living comparison

This paper presents a comparison of standards of living between Canadian provinces and U.S. states. Most comparisons with the United States focus on the national perspective, while provincial analyses are essentially restricted to the domestic context. This study extends the scope of the exercise to the regional level since, as shown in our previous studies, the relative performance of the provinces varies significantly and, therefore, the challenges raised by the greaterintegration of the North-American market are also likely to differ. The comparison focuses on standards of living with a special emphasis on labour productivity.