The Bank of Canada is currently considering, through research, a shift from inflation targeting to price level path targeting. For previous blog commentary and a good critique by Jim see http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2006/12/03/bank-of-canada-inflation-targeting/ The general idea is that if inflation exceeds the target of 2% in any given year, the future price level path should be kept on course by keeping inflation […]
Read moreI went trawling through the detailed trade by commodity data on the Industry Canada (Strategis) web site the other day in search of examples of potential job creation from raising the Canadian content of public sector procurement (as called for, not just by the labour movement but also, recently, by the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.) As a very rough rule […]
Read moreAfter weeks of speculation, Stephane Dion has tabled the Liberals’ carbon tax plan, dubbed The Green Shift. The plan seems heavily influenced by both BC’s carbon tax and the Mintz/Olewiler plan released in April. Tax revenues, which reach $15 billion by year four, are fully recycled into PIT and CIT cuts plus some low income measures. The tax starts at […]
Read more… is people like me, who have made spectacular capital gains as home owners. Through the dumb luck of having bought real estate at the right time, before the current boom, my family has reaped a windfall profit that only an oil executive could sneer at. It is not particularly accessible. We need to live somewhere and could only really […]
Read moreMarc Lee’s most excellent paper to the PEF session on carbon pricing at the CEA meetings in Vancouver got me thinking. (That whole session was awesome, by the way — including Lars Osberg’s provocative analysis that the vast majority of Canadians, whose real consumption has not grown in recent years, have already met their personal Kyoto targets. It’s only the […]
Read moreHow about those productivity numbers that StatsCan released last week? Wow: another nail in the coffin of Jim Flaherty’s claim that Canada’s economic fundamentals are in “great shape.â€Â There’s not much more fundamental in economics than how efficiently people produce stuff (except, of course, for what we do with what we produce – that’s even more fundamental). And by that […]
Read moreWas it just me or did others get a nagging feeling about the intent behind Air Canada’s surprise announcement of 2,000 layoffs yesterday? The media coverage played along the lines of their press release, with a strong focus on the rising cost of fuel. This is certainly an issue, together with the impact of the higher Canadian dollar and the […]
Read moreThe 2008 OECD Economic Review of Canada http://www.oecd.org/document/3/0,3343,fr_2649_201185_40732867_1_1_1_1,00.html contains most of the standard neo liberal policy prescriptions we have come to expect – including a proposed shift to a consumption based tax system. However, they do have the good grace to devote two pages (84-85) to “equity considerations” and even concede that ” efficiency considerations come at a cost – […]
Read moreWith the Conservatives’ “Born in the USA” Copyright Act now tabled, the fur is flying. A year after leaping to the defence of the oil and gas industry, Terrance Corcoran has got Big US Media’s back (does Terry ever stand up for anyone but the wealthy and powerful?). As always, Michael Giest, who knows way more about copyright than yours […]
Read moreIt is with considerable disgust that we watch the Conservatives introduce the US entertainment industry’s wet dream of legislation to amend copyright laws in its favour. Without any evidence that the super-profits being reaped by Big Media have been adversely affected by file sharing. Without any consultation with Canadians. Without any demonstrable benefit to Canadians as consumers, artists or content […]
Read moreThere is a certain elegance and appeal of personal carbon quotas. Like democracy they are inherently equalizing. A challenge for carbon taxes is that they may allow the wealthy to buy their way our of change, when it is the most affluent who have the largest carbon footprints (a CCPA study is coming out next week on this topic). And […]
Read moreIt’s not often that I get my hopes up about a potential volte-face in the way we talk and think about economics at the policy and political level but this is by far the best news I’ve heard in a long long time. It seems that our very own Jamie Galbraith, scion of John Kenneth Galbraith and keynote speaker for […]
Read moreAt the recent PEF annual general meeting, we announced the winners of the 2008 PEF student essay contest. Thanks to Brenda Spotton Visano for coordinating this year’s contest. Graduate winner ($1,000 prize): “Healing a Crisis of Overaccumulation: How Canada’s Public Health Care System is Being Undermined through Accumulation by Disposession” by Heather Whiteside (Simon Fraser University) Honourable Mention : “Swedish […]
Read moreIt is disappointing that the Bank of Canada left the Bank Rate unchanged today at 3%. Many economists had expected a quarter point interest rate cut today, on top of the half point cut announced on April 22nd. The job market has clearly continued to weaken over the past two months because of the high Canadian dollar and the manufacturing […]
Read moreToday at the Canadian Economics Association meetings, the PEF officially awarded the first John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics to co-winners Mel Watkins and Kari Polanyi Levitt. We had a packed room for the event, which featured opening remarks by Jamie Galbraith, and a historical retrospective of their works by Jim Stanford. Below is the text of Mel Watkins’ Lecture. […]
Read more… says Paul Krugman. And I’m in a session at the CEA confence on Keynes where the original quote just came up. Nothing new here to readers of this blog, but I like that Krugman is using his pulpit to deliver the message at a time when the Canadian government is on the verge of introducing legislation that would allow […]
Read moreCCPA submitted a brief to Vancouver City Council about the city’s EcoDensity Initiative, by myself and co-authors, Erick Villagomez, Penny Gurstein, David Eby and Elvin Wyly. We have been working on a bigger climate justice paper looking at affordable housing and EcoDensity, but a short window came up for written submissions on the revised and updated EcoDensity Charter, so we […]
Read moreHaving travelled north of 60 as part of the Yukon Federation of Labour’s campaign against TILMA, I appreciate the territorial government’s decision to not join the deal. I will again be travelling around Canada’s newest TILMA-free zone and not contributing to this blog during the next couple of weeks.
Read moreThrough the following op-ed in Thursday’s Toronto Star, the United Steelworkers’ Canadian Director makes the case for a carbon tariff. It is now widely accepted that the struggle against global warming will involve placing a price on carbon emissions.  An equivalent tariff would prevent corporations from evading this price by relocating their carbon-intensive activities to countries that choose not to price […]
Read moreThe CCPA have posted to their web site Armine Yalnizyan’s excellent presentation to last week’s CLC Convention: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2008/06/ReportsStudies1900/index.cfm
Read moreAs highlighted in the most recent version of the OECD Jobs Study, Denmark has recently managed to combine a very egalitarian distribution of wages and incomes with excellent employment and economic performance. The Danish “flexicurity†model gives the great majority of workers decent wages and working conditions, achieved though very high levels of unionization, very high unemployment benefits as a […]
Read moreDenial with a capital “D”. That’s the only way to describe the reaction to Friday’s stunner from Statistics Canada: real GDP shrank 0.3% (at annualized rates) in the first quarter, and hence Canada is likely already in the recession that our fearless government leaders have been saying can’t happen here. For months economists have been wondering if Canada could escape […]
Read moreI have been critical of the Globe‘s business reporting practices in the past (especially its tendency to quote Bank economists as “objective” observers of economic events) but on Saturday, it ran one of the best business pieces I’ve read in a long time. The article, titled “Who is responsible for the global food crisis?” is a solid and thorough piece […]
Read moreEver wonder what the Bank of Canada might do in the event of staflation (high/rising inflation & high /rising unemployment)? Wonder no more. In an interview with LaPresse, our new Governor Mark Carney states, in no uncertain terms, that the Bank’s objective would remain the same as it has been since the early 1990s, namely keeping inflation on target at […]
Read moreToday’s release of first quarter GDP numbers shows a minus sign: Real gross domestic product (GDP) edged down 0.1% in the first quarter of 2008, its first quarterly decline since the second quarter of 2003. The economy, which had started to lose momentum in the second half of 2007 as exports declined, stalled in the first quarter due to widespread cutbacks in manufacturing, most notably […]
Read moreI have equivocated on carbon taxes vs cap-and-trade on this very blog. But more recently I’ve been leaning towards carbon tax – with the caveats that distribution be addressed and that carbon taxes be part of a suite of other policy measures. That is, carbon taxes are only part of the solution, so I am somewhere between the skeptics who […]
Read moreWe now have the official schedule for the CEA meetings. Please note that in addition to the sessions below, the PEF annual general meeting is on Saturday June 7 at noon. All paid-up members are welcome to attend. Also, the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize will be awarded on Sunday June 8, 10:30 am. The 2008 co-winners, Mel Watkins and Kari […]
Read moreThe Wellesley Institute blasts the federal Liberals on housing: Earlier today, the Liberal Urban Communities Caucus released a powerful report condemning the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, and calling for strong action. Eighteen years ago, almost to the day, the National Liberal Caucus Task Force on Housing released a powerful report that condemned the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, and […]
Read moreIf you have visited this blog before you probably know that Erin Weir and I have it in for bogus arguments about alleged but unproven interprovincial trade barriers. Give us some examples, we say, but the rhetoric of trade barriers always seems to trump any actual evidence. And I’m not even talking about empirical evidence with a high degree of […]
Read moreIn his rabble.ca column, Duncan Cameron raises some concerns about carbon taxes: When Liberal leader, Stéphane Dion, floated the carbon tax idea in Toronto recently, Layton responded that such a tax would cause severe problems for poor and low income Canadians. May and Suzuki both support a carbon tax, and think its impact on the poor can be remedied through […]
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