Research

Getting Aligned: How Adopting Standards Affects Canada’s Productivity and Growth

This 25-page report, commissioned by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) and produced by the Conference Board of Canada, confirms the essential role that standards play in Canada’s economic growth and labour productivity. The report is an update to the Conference Board’s July 2007 research report entitled Economic Value of Standardization.

The report notes that from 1981 to 2014, standardization contributed to 7.8 per cent of the growth rate in real GDP and 16.1 per cent of the growth in labour productivity in Canada. Assuming that the estimated impact of standardization was constant between 1981 and 2014, in 2014, growth in the stock of standards contributed roughly $3 billion of the $39 billion increase in real GDP.

Read the report on the SCC website here.