The Progressive Economics Forum

Recent publicity given to the CCPA report on the huge gap between the compensation of CEOs and ordinary workers should prompt some discussion on what should be done about it. Part of the answer undoubtedly lies in reforms to corporate governance. Shareholders can potentially exert some control over the compensation committees of Boards of Directors [...]

Walden Bello, of Focus on the Global South, says yes: Globalization in Retreat Walden Bello When it first became part of the English vocabulary in the early 1990s, globalization was supposed to be the wave of the future. Fifteen years ago, the writings of globalist thinkers such as Kenichi Ohmae and Robert Reich celebrated the [...]

I recently read somewhere a commentary that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was not really that radical, that his populist rhetoric was largely limited to expanding social programs for the poor, and that behind the scenes he was still playing nice with US businesses. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost the link to that article. Perhaps Chavez’s [...]

In his presidential address to the American Economics Association, Nobel laureate George Akerlof points to a new agenda for macroeconomics, rooted in more realistic assumptions about human behaviour. Below is the abstract and introduction. The full paper is here. Economist’s View’s coverage also includes a New York Times article that interviews Akerlof about his views [...]

Stephen Gordon wonders whether eliminating the Canadian Wheat Board would be of benefit to consumers: The Canadian Wheat Board: Won’t anybody think of the consumers? The Canadian Wheat Board – a cartel for Canadian wheat producers – is experiencing the sort of troubles that all cartels have to deal with at some point or another: [...]

Ellen Gould has noted that the Conference Board’s report projects gains for industries that are explicitly exempted from TILMA: utilities, energy, mining, forestry, and fishing. The Conference Board’s analysis was based on a “draft negotiators’ text” (see page 39). However, the actual agreement wholly or partly exempts the industries listed above (see pages 19-20 and 22). These exempt industries could [...]

The Conference Board estimates that TILMA will add $4.8 billion to British Columbia’s economy. Even if one accepts the Conference Board’s assumptions, this figure should be $2.4 billion (as explained below). However, some of these assumptions are highly questionable. The Conference Board argues, “The commercial services and wholesale and retail trade industries will benefit from [...]

Neil Reynolds is at it again in today’s Report on Business (not available on line), defining poverty out of existence by questioning the reliability of standard statistical measures. His main point in a somewhat confused argument is that poverty rates are over-stated by conventional income-based measures such as the LICO. Reynolds argues that the poor [...]

The Government of British Columbia has finally released the Conference Board study projecting that TILMA will add $4.8 billion to the provincial economy. Seeing the study’s methodology (or lack thereof) makes this projection seem even sillier than Marc and I had suggested. The Conference Board “scored” eleven industries in seven regions on the following arbitrary [...]

  A useful piece on the ‘new’ Danish Economy and why it works by Jonathan Cohn, a senior editor at the (American) New Republic and a senior fellow at Demos, a US-based national, non-partisan public policy, research and advocacy organization. NEOLIBERAL UTOPIA AWAITS. Great Danes by Jonathan Cohn Post date: 01.03.07 Issue date: 01.15.07 If [...]

The Dominion Institute has recruited twenty great Canadian thinkers to write about what the country might look like in 2020. The fourteen essays currently posted include Don Drummond’s neo-classical analysis of manufacturing and productivity and Jim Stanford’s excellent analysis of Canada’s reliance on natural resources. Jim’s main argument, that Canada’s unmanaged resource boom is damaging other [...]

I recently had occasion to re-read Jim Stanford’s contribution to an excellent CCPA book on Paul Martin’s Record (Hell and High Water), in which Jim pointed out that fiscal retrenchment in Canada under the Chretien government had been far, far more severe than the OECD norm. Few Canadians seem to perceive just how exceptional Canada [...]

http://www.campaign2000.ca/rc/index.html Campaign 2000 have released a new report card based mainly on some number crunching by the Canadian Council on Social Development.  Among the more interesting findings: The child poverty rate has been essentially unchanged over the past three years (2001- 2004), (and indeed gradually rising by the most commonly used post tax LICO measure). [...]

Andrew Brown says the dark side of Microsof’s new Vista operating system is a nasty digital rights management system. Oh the relentless greed of the movie industry. In cahoots with Microsoft they are seeking to guarantee their billions in profits and to ensure Tom Cruise can continue to make $20 million a movie. Making the [...]

Where I live in BC, the provincial government is doing its best to subtlely undermine public health care, rather than make the reforms countless commissions have recommended to make the system better. A full frontal assault is not possible due to the continuing popularity of a public model, but perhaps they think that if they [...]

Best wishes to all for 2007. Thanks to all who stop by the RPE blog to read and add their comments to articles and stories we think are important. This blog began in June 2006 with me starting to post items of interest, but without really telling anyone about it. It gained strength over the [...]