I’m finding the run-up to the federal Budget (widely expected March 22nd) more than a little frustrating. There is certainly no sharp public policy debate regarding budget priorities. The dominant media frame reinforces the Conservative message that 1) recovery is underway 2) the federal books have to be balanced and 3) tax increases are bad. This frame excludes discussion of […]
Read moreStatscan investment intentions data released today show thatgrowth of  real investment by the private sector is set to slow markedly in 2011 compared to 2010. (up 3.8% vs up 8.0% in 2010.) So much for the stimulative effect of corporate tax cuts. Surprise, surprise investment is concentrated in the resource sector, especially oil, where high prices and profits guarantee high returns to […]
Read moreMy new colleague Chris Roberts has prepared an analysis of the pros and cons of the Canada Pension Plan and the proposed Pooled Registered Pension Plans. The following is taken from the introduction: “Pooled Registered Pension Plans are privately administered workplace pension plans similar in many respects to a defined contribution (DC) workplace pension plan, or group Registered Retirement Savings […]
Read moreOne of my pet beefs is the frequently heard CFIB claim that small businesses are the job creators, not large enterprises. What is small and what is big? It all depends on whether you look at the size of the workplace, or the number of employees of a company at all locations. Wal Mart may be modest in size by […]
Read moreToday’s National Post gave front page coverage to a “study” from the Frontier Centre claiming that wages of public servants have far outstripped those of private sector workers over the past decade. “Wage increases doled out to federal and provincial public servants have nearly doubled those given to private-sector employees in the past decade, according to a new report that […]
Read moreI was taken a bit aback by Kevin Carmichael’s piece on Obama’s budget plans in today’s ROB. In what is more a news than an opinion piece on concerns regarding fiscal sustainability in the US , he baldly states without attribution that “Research and history suggests that a debt-to-GDP ratio of 60 per cent or higher is a prelude for […]
Read moreFor the wine lovers among us progressive economists, which definitely includes me, this NBER paper offers up a, well, sobering argument. “We examine the value of terroir, which refers to the special characteristics of a place that impart unique qualities to the wine produced. We do this by conducting a hedonic analysis of vineyard sales in the Willamette Valley of […]
Read moreThe CFIB hav a new study out attacking minimum wages Their estimate of job losses from a 10% increase in minimum wages is based on elasticities from studies which found significant negative impacts on employment and discounts the many studies which have found very small impacts. The OECD – which is more impartial – has found the effect of minimum […]
Read moreOne concern is that this deal may undermine our ability to regulate financial markets. If the Canadian exchanges become majority owned in the UK, and if the Canada – EU deal is ratified with a Chapter 11 like investment clause, then we leave ourselves open to sanctions if and when we impose regulations which result in a loss of expected […]
Read moreThe Report of the Task Force on Financial Literacy is all that one would have expected from one co chaired by the CEO of Sun Life Financial and the Chairman of BMO Nesbitt Burns. There is hardly a whisper of criticism of financial institutions and the myriad fees, charges and interest rates they extract from ordinary Canadians. You will not […]
Read moreStatscan have released their regular (about every 5 years) statistical compilation, Women in Canada. In a box in the earnings section – around Table 20- one will find a short summary of a paper by Michael Baker and Statscan employee Marie Drolet from the December, 2010 issue of Canadian Public Policy. Entitled “The Gender Wage Gap Revisited” it states that: […]
Read moreIt is, according to a major story by Barrie McKenna in today’s ROB. The story is full of telling anecdotes which ring more or less true. But I doubt that higher oil prices are, on net, a plus for the total Canadian economy in terms of either GDP or employment. True, high and rising oil prices will (often with a […]
Read moreWhy yes of course we are, but perhaps not quite so urban as we think. It is often asserted that most Canadians now live in big cities or their suburbs. But this is a bit misleading, leaving the impression that almost all of us live in Greater Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Statscan has decided to end the old rural/urban dichotomy […]
Read more(Ben and Nick Rowe correctly pointed out that I goofed in the calculations in the earlier version of this post, which I have deleted and replaced.) How much money do I need for a secure retirement? That is the question many baby boomers are asking themselves. The short answer is, a lot, at least so long as we have to […]
Read moreDavid Dodge is as close to an authoritative mainstream voice as we have on economic issues (not that that means he is always right, but he sure counts in the mainstream media.) Here is what David Dodge had to say on postponing corporate income tax cuts in a lecture at Queen’s a year ago. “In addition the final scheduled cut […]
Read moreStatscan economist Philip Cross weighs in on how trivial is the impact of cuts in the overall scheme of things, as reported in a fine story by Heather Scoffield of CP. I agree, but fear his career will be in serious jeopardy. Or perhaps he is on the eve of joining Munir in retirement. Minister Clement will not like this […]
Read moreA useful study from Industrial Relations (65/4; Fall, 2010.). Apparently we don’t screw things up for innovative firms. What Do Unions Do to Innovation? An Empirical Examination of the Canadian Private Sector Scott Walsworth Associate Professor and Hanlon Scholar in International Business, Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada walsworth@edwards.usask.ca SUMMARY This article uses Canadian national data […]
Read moreI made a short presentation on the disturbing rise of temporary work last week. It seems the cutting edge of the new normal is to be found in our schools, colleges and universities. As most of us would know or strongly suspect, paid work has become more casualized or precarious over time as the standard employment relationship of full time, permanent […]
Read moreLabour Force Survey revisions announced in the Daily today show that total employment has still not recovered to pre recession levels. “Compared with the employment peak of October 2008, employment in December 2010 was lower by 30,000 (-0.2%) based on the revised LFS estimates. Between the employment peak of October 2008 and the recent low in July 2009, the revised LFS estimates show an employment decline of 428,000 (-2.5%). Between […]
Read moreAt the five year mark, there is a lot of commentary on the Conservative record. Have they been true to their right-wing economic agenda, or shifted to the centre? I find evidence for the former argument much more convincing. The Conservative fiscal record spans the five full fiscal years, from 2006-07 to 2010-11 (which is now drawing to a close.) […]
Read moreI have been reflecting a bit on the CME study of corporate taxes which Erin has previously covered quite comprehensively. This subject is clearly very much in political play at the moment. With the Liberals and the NDPÂ opposing cuts to the federal corporate income tax rate championed by the Conservatives, it merits further debate. The key argument made by […]
Read moreThere is too much happy talk that the Great Recession is behind us. Here is my latest, rather gloomy, piece for The Mark.
Read moreHere is an interesting piece from the Financial Times on how Chinese companies are rapidly grabbing global market share from Germany of all countries across a swath of technologically sophisticated capital goods industries, from solar, to high speed rail, to the German fortress of mechanical engineering and machine tools. Had China heeded the mainstream view that its comparative advantage lay […]
Read moreFinance Minister Flaherty’s announcement of restrictions on mortgage lending deserves some credit (pun intended.)Â But there is a bit more to this than is immediately apparent. The government has decided that, to qualify for government-backed mortgage insurance, the amortization period of a mortgage should be no more than 30 years (down from 35 years now, and 40 years in 2006, […]
Read moreIt is one thing to argue (as the CME did last week) that corporate income tax cuts boost GDP via higher investment and thus generate some offsetting increase in revenues. (See Erin’s post for a good critique.) It is quite another thing for Finance Minister Flaherty to argue that CIT rate cuts generate fully offsetting CIT revenues. Here is what […]
Read moreOh, the cynicism of it all. I was just watching the Evan Solomon Power and Politics show on Newsworld (about 5.40pm ) when an ad came up extolling opportunities for re-training under Canada’s Economic Action Plan and referring viewers to the same web site. That’s strange, I thought. Have those programs not expired? I checked the web site and find […]
Read moreStatistics Canada provides free of charge a very rich set of data on income issues, including low income (aka poverty) in 20/20 format. Here you can find data on the incidence of low income by four different measures; by family type; and by quite detailed geography. (You have to play around with the active dimension to get at all of […]
Read moreHow are union bashers able to get away with inflammatory rhetoric which would be roundly denounced as extremism and worse if directed to other targets? Here is an extract from the transcript of Kevin O’Leary’s interview with Heather Hiscox on CBC News Morning (6.52 am on January 10.) Emphasis added. “we still have the problems of unions in many sectors, […]
Read moreThere are some pretty cool charts to play with in today’s release of the interactive version of this biannual report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Read moreSometimes the crudest forms of Marxist analysis of the relationship between class and politics make the most sense. Read this  scorching commentary by Simon Johnson – the former IMF Chief Economist turned ubercritic of the power of the big banks - on the appointment of a senior Wall Street figure, Bill Daley from Morgan Stanley, as President Obama’s new chief […]
Read more