Did the ‘Quiet Revolution’ Really Change Anything?

The year 1960 is often presented as a break year in the economic history of Quebec and Canada. It is used to mark the beginning of the “Quiet Revolution” during which Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec under rapid socio-economic change in the form of rapid economic convergence with the rest of Canada and the emergence of a more expansive state. Using synthetic control methods, we analyze whether 1960 is associated with a departure from previous developments. With regards to GDP per capita, GDP per worker, household-size adjusted income, life expectancy at birth, and enrollment rates in primary and secondary schools, we find that 1960 was not an important date. For most of these measures, the counterfactual scenario is slightly better than the actual data but not by significant margins. Only with respect to the size of government do we find sign of a break.