The Globe and Mail is running a series on homelessness in BC (at least, in its BC edition). Mark Hume reiterates the case for supportive housing arrangements to get people off the streets into a place where they can stabilize their lives. It would be highly advisable for senior governments to get back into the housing game, as the market […]
Read moreToday my boss walked in with a notice from his child’s daycare that fees were going up because the Tories have cancelled the Early Learning and Child Care transfer (and the BC government is not picking up any slack in spite of its multi-billion surpluses) – the fee increase eats up his family’s new “child care allowance” cheque and then […]
Read moreStatistics Canada has released results of the latest wealth survey (Survey of Financial Security, or SFS), covering the 2005 year (previous survey was for 1999, and prior to that, 1984). This makes for an interesting comparison, as the 1999 results came at a time when stock markets were bubbling, whereas by 2005 the bubble had shifted to real estate. One […]
Read moreThe World Distribution of Household Wealth, by James B. Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks, and Edward N. Wolff, was released by the World Institute for Development Economics Research. A Canadian (and a former prof of mine at Western – Go Mustangs!) is the lead author. The full paper is available here. The extended press release doubles as the report’s summary: […]
Read moreThe CCPA released today a study by Osgoode Hall tax professor Neil Brooks and York’s Thaddeus Hwong called The Social Benefits and Economic Costs of Taxation: A Comparison of High and Low-tax Countries. The study compares 50 indicators of social and economic performance. The full study is available here and a condensed summary follows: Tax levels in Canada have always […]
Read moreWas that ever an exciting Liberal leadership convention. It is rare for Canadian politics to get that interesting. Now the fun really begins. Dion would appear to be a good choice. Rae was too smear-able over his time as Ontario Premier; Ignatieff too much a political neophyte and would have had his foot in his mouth during a battle with […]
Read moreFrom the Edmonton Sun: Tory leadership contender Ted Morton says Alberta should cut the amount it contributes to federal transfer payments so it can build more roads and sewers for an influx of workers. Speaking on an Alberta radio talk show (Rutherford-CHQR-CHED), Morton says it makes no sense for Ottawa to pay out employment insurance to keep workers in Atlantic […]
Read morePaul Krugman is in the bears’ camp for 2007 (thanks to Economist’s View for posting NYT Select content): Economic Storm Signals … Before I explain what the bond market is telling us, let’s talk about why the economy may be at a turning point. Between mid-2003 and mid-2006, economic growth in the United States was fueled mainly by a huge […]
Read moreMonday’s release by the UK government of the Stern Review on The Economics of Climate Change could come to be seen as one of those pivotal events in shaping public policy. I hope so, anyway. This report takes the accumulation of scientific knowledge about the present and potential future impacts of global warming and translates them into the language of […]
Read moreThe push for “competitiveness” is often framed around differences in corporate taxation. Our tax rates, it is argued, must be equivalent to or less than those of our competitors so that we can attract the investment we need to increase our standard of living. There is some truth to that in that if our taxes were way out of line […]
Read moreJust weeks ago it was Telus that was the biggest ever conversion to an income trust. Now BCE jumps to the top. This mania for income trusts has me wondering how the rash of conversions from corporate entities to income trusts can make good economic sense. Income trusts are clearly a vehicle by which corporate taxes can be avoided, that […]
Read moreJim Stanford and Stephen Gordon are keeping me busy today. Another missive from Jim Stanford in the Globe prompted this post from Stephen that leads to some interesting points of comparison between the Nordic model and the Canadian status quo: Welfare states can be competitive Jim Stanford sets aside our shared scepticism about the WEF competitiveness rankings to make two […]
Read moreThe prospect of a free trade deal with South Korea has set off a mini-debate at Stephen Gordon’s Worthwhile Canadian Initiative. Jim Stanford’s column in the Globe prompted this post from Stephen: Mercantilism at the Globe and Mail Courtesy of Jim Stanford: Why the rush to ink more deals? Where free trade is concerned, Canada is getting worse with practice: […]
Read moreKudos to Norway, already a leader in foreign aid as a share of GDP, for cancelling the bilateral debts of five poor nations. The amount of money is not huge, so one might ask why it has taken this long – the 2000 Jubilee campaign might have been a better time. From the story below, Norway actually seems pretty innocent […]
Read moreThe 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics goes to Edmund Phelps. (Technically, this is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, because Nobel did not actually endow a prize in economics back in 1901; the economics prize was added in 1968.) The essay accompanying the prize can be found here. Below I’ve pasted two differing econo-blog […]
Read more“We are not acquisitive automatons conditioned always to follow narrow self-interest.” So says the UK’s The Times in an article on “neuro-economics”, a sub-field of economics that bridges psychology and neurology in an attempt to understand human behaviour. Alas, rather than an empirical approach to human behaviour, the economics profession has been willing to make the huge assumption about human […]
Read moreHere’s a post from Economist’s View starting with a novel argument against single payer health insurance: that it would hurt innovation. Mark Thoma then rebuts and throws in some Paul Krugman for safe measure. Krugman makes an important point that often we assume that innovation is always a good thing. True, some innovations lead to better health outcomes. Others do […]
Read moreSince it appears to be drug day at RPE, I should mention as a follow-up to a previous post on the National Pharmaceuticals Strategy that I did track down the document in question, a NPS Progress Report, and that the Globe reporter did indeed misrepresent the estimates of the cost of that program. The Globe stated that the Report “pegs […]
Read moreToday’s Globe and Mail features two excellent articles about drugs in Canada. The first makes some great points about what might be possible with a national pharmacare plan and how politics is getting in the way of doing the right thing. The second is about how profit-seeking by pharmaceutical companies is distorting the cost of treatment. In this case, doctors […]
Read moreThe BC government has introduced a new program to address the crisis in housing affordability: rent supplements. Over the past five years, the BC government has stopped building affordable housing for low income people. There has been new federal money for this purpose but the government has used that money to build “assisted living” spaces for seniors (properly part of […]
Read moreJoseph Stiglitz takes on the matter of global imbalances with some thoughts on how they might be resolved. I confess to be perplexed by the persistence of these imbalances, as someone who was concerned about their potentially destabilizing impact a few year ago. But then again I called the stock market bubble back in 1997. Events have a way of […]
Read moreToday’s report from the Fraser Institute finds that, surprise surprise, health care spending is unsustainable. Or at least that is what the Fraser’s funders want you to think. I find the Fraser Institute has an excellent knack for putting out media-friendly goodies that on closer examination do not stand up to scrutiny. But the media are generally not that interested […]
Read moreThe Toronto Star’s Thomas Walkom looks at the choices we make that keep the poor, um, poor. Walkom looks only at the working poor, not the welfare poor. If we add to the pile the numerous regressive reforms to provincial welfare programs the picture is even uglier. There’s much we can do to combat poverty Enforcing current laws would help […]
Read moreFile this one under the economic costs of climate change. If you have been to or flown over BC lately you will have noticed the astonishing amount of red (dying) pine trees. The mountian pine beetle is normally killed by cold cold winters, but winters now are not cold enough, and summers are just to their liking. Add to the […]
Read moreThe PEF is a Canadian network of progressive economists from academia, research institutes, trade unions and beyond. This site is a forum for members, with a focus on the Canadian economy and public policy with reseach and analysis as it happens. Stay tuned!
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