http://business.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2023410,00.html The current panic on the world’s markets is indicative of more than just the madness of crowds, writes Larry Elliott Wednesday February 28, 2007 Guardian Unlimited Predictably, the crash in global share prices is being shrugged off as a mere blip. The fact that Shanghai fell by 9% in a day and Wall Street had its biggest one-day fall […]
Read moreI just received my 2006 issue of Society at a Glance: OECD Social Indicators. (Best seen in living colour!) The OECD now regularly reports systematic national indicators of earnings inequality (Table EQ2.1). I have made wide use in the past of data for the mid to late 1990s circulated in the OECD Employment Outlook, which are now dated. The new […]
Read morehttp://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/srpt_rrsp_022007.pdf An interesting piece on retirement savings from CIBC. It highlights the huge increase in unused RRSP contribution room in recent years, and the widening contribution gap between higher and lower income Canadians. As of 2005, the median total asset value of RRSPs held by pre retirement persons aged 55-65 was just $60,000 – hardly enough to secure a decent […]
Read morehttp://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070223/d070223a.htm Philip Cross of Statscan has writen an interesting analysis of our very weak labour productivity performance in 2006. Output per hour growth has been very slow – a result of weak output growth combined with fairly strong job growth. The key factor highlighted here is declining productivity in the mining sector as production shifts to less accessible resources, and […]
Read moreIn setting monetary policy, the Bank of Canada emphasizes “Core CPI,” which excludes the most volatile components of the Consumer Price Index to provide a clearer measure of underlying trends. My last post noted that average Canadian wage increases exceeded inflation by only 1% during the past year. However, inflation was held down by a dip in energy prices. Therefore, […]
Read morehttp://papers.nber.org/papers/W12910 An instructive – and admittedly interesting – example of the proclivity of economists to reduce almost everything to rationalist explanations. Attack Assignments in Terror Organizations and The Productivity of Suicide Bombers Efraim Benmelech, Claude Berrebi NBER Working Paper No. 12910 Issued in February 2007 NBER Program(s):Â Â Â LS Â Â Â POL This paper studies the relation between human capital of suicide bombers […]
Read moreThe CAW has merged with about 35 smaller unions since we were formed in 1985. That doesn’t stop me, however, from questioning the economic usefulness of Canadian corporate mergers. M&A activity last year reached an incredible $270 billion. That’s 20 percent of our GDP. And what good actually comes from it? At best, the M&A boom is a sideshow. At […]
Read moreVancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan adds his two cents: good urban design, through higher densities and good public transit, needs to be part of the solution. It’s time to talk about urban density Tue 13 Feb 2007 As mayor of one of Canada’s biggest cities, Vancouver, I am frustrated with the nature of the debate on global climate change in this […]
Read moreMore musings below on how BC can meet its new climate change commitments. Hint: they go far beyond what was identified in the Throne Speech. But I am quite pleased that this discussion is happening on page one of the Vancouver Sun: Campbell’s Green Dream To reduce emissions by 33 %: Can he deliver? Thursday, February 15, 2007 British Columbia […]
Read more An interesting and informed reflection on the sources of rising inequality - seen as not reducible to “skill biased technological change”, with the usual cop out that almost all of the answer lies in education and training. http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2007/20070206/default.htm Remarks by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke Before the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, Omaha, Nebraska February 6, 2007 The Level and Distribution […]
Read moreThe CCPA released two papers today on the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, one by Ellen Gould that looks at the potential risks posed by the deal’s sweeping language, and a second by myself and Erin Weir, on the contrived economic case made for TILMA. Both papers can be downloaded here. Below is the press release, which provides a […]
Read moreSome factiods on the well-being of children from a recent UNICEF report (hat tip here). The Nordics are generally at the top of the list; Canada is number 12; the US and UK round out the bottom of the 21 countries on the list. Way to go, Scandinavia – with your high taxes, generous social programs and competitive economies – […]
Read moreMitch Anderson in The Tyee comments further on BC’s Throne Speech and the outlines of a new plan on global warming. Premier’s Shaky Global Warming Pitch Will he or won’t he? That was the question on the minds of many British Columbians this week as Gordon Campbell prepared to release the throne speech and announce whether B.C. was really going […]
Read moreMy Director, Seth Klein, likes to joke that the Campbell government has somehow managed to resuscitate Chairman Mao’s old speechwriter. We have seen the “New Era of Prosperity” back in the 2001 election, and the “Five Great Goals for a Golden Decade” in the 2005 election. With today’s Throne Speech, we have the “Pacific Century” and the “Pacific Leadership Agenda”. […]
Read moreJoseph Stiglitz points to some solutions to global warming, and some politics that stands in the way, excerpted from his latest column: What is required, first and foremost, are market-based incentives to induce Americans to use less energy and to produce more energy in ways that emit less carbon. But Bush has neither eliminated massive subsidies to the oil industry […]
Read moreThis story below was the front page banner headline on Saturday’s Vancouver Sun. It is a pretty exciting thought that BC might seek to emulate California with aggressive emissions targets. And between the lines, there appears to be some backtracking with regard to the approval of two new coal-fired power plants (which would be the first in BC, and are […]
Read moreThis article from the New York Times generally roots for congestion pricing in NYC. As someone who rides a bike to work, I tend to agree, though I am concerned that there would be a hit on some modest-income people who need a car to get to work or who live in areas that are designed for the car and […]
Read moreMuch of the outrage about file sharing (aka “piracy”) has come from movie studios and record companies, but not much at all from TV networks. Of course, they do put out their product for free, albeit bundled with advertising. Lots of people record these shows and watch them at their convenience, often skipping the adversiting. So it is not much […]
Read moreI was at a forum on labour shortages in Canada yesterday, organized by the Canadian Association of Sector Councils. (These consist of industry plus some labour representatives who undertake labour force planning activities, sometimes including sponsorship and promotion of training.) There was an interesting clash of economic and employer perspectives on the labour shortages issue. Mike McCracken from Informetrica kicked-off […]
Read moreA big conference on this topic – and key Conservative promise – gets underway in Toronto today. Here’s a CLC commentary, from Executive Vice-President Barb Byers.. “ The Federal government has been busy introducing Canadians to the idea of “Patient Wait-Times Guaranteesâ€. If patients are unable to receive treatment in a timely manner, Conservatives argue, the public health system […]
Read moreBelow is Steve Jobs’ article, playing on some of the same themes as Barlow. But without the grand conclusion that Barlow espouses: musicians can control live performances, and make good money doing it. “Pirated” distribution can create an audience willing to play $40 (ranging up to $200) to see a live show. We already see this reflected in the higher […]
Read moreArun Dubois’ posts on copyright and intellectual property have me digging back a decade to my days as a bureaucrat at Industry Canada in the Information and Communications Technology branch. I remember reading this essay by John Perry Barlow, published in Wired back in 1996 or so, and finding it really compelling. Reading it again today, some of Barlow’s terminology […]
Read moreCanada, with the notable exception of Quebec, continues to lag when it comes to early childhood education. The research says that the most important brain development happens between birth and age six, so why do we wait until age six before we have kids in school full-time (most kindergarten programs are “half-day”, generally three hours or less)? Dollar for dollar […]
Read moreFormer Conservative Garth Turner’s decision to join the Liberal caucus is one of several recent news items that highlight the extensive similarity between these two parties on economic policy. 1.) In response to the Conservative proposal to require that all interest savings from debt repayment be devoted to tax cuts, the former Liberal Finance Minister says, “The fact of the […]
Read moreThis is good news and good timing. With Steve Jobs on side, maybe the folks at Heritage/Industry will reconsider their quaint attachment to rigid intellectual property rights measures when they set about drafting amendments to the copyright act. Dare to dream…
Read moreIn case you missed it, last year UCLA’s Ed Leamer did an excellent critique of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. He plays cat and mouse with Friedman’s use of the term “flat”, offering up a review of economic theory and empirical evidence related to the theme, while making some pretty funny jokes at Friedman’s expense. The full pdf, which […]
Read moreI find myself shaking my head when I read that Exxon-Mobil just announced an all-time record profit of US$39.5 billion for 2006. And then, after the release of the IPCC report on Friday, the Exxon-Mobil-funded think tanks come out denying climate change (it should be noted that Exxon-Mobil’s contributions to these groups would appear to amount to less than a […]
Read moreAfter posting a 1959 video interview of Ayn Rand, Mark Thoma rants about the common problems of “free markets”: Markets Are Not Magic … To listen to some commentators is to believe that markets are the solution to all of our problems. Health care not working? Bring in the private sector. Need to rebuild a war-torn country? Send in the […]
Read moreAs we have been hearing about the legacies of the great minds of economics, a name that has not cropped up much lately is Marx. The first article below suggests that Marx’s ideas live with us in the global economy, and growing inequality has awoken the old guy’s spirit. With it we are seeing a resurgence of the word “capitalism” […]
Read moreDean Baker makes the case below. I think this is a good way of internalizing the external costs of driving, including CO2 emissions and other nasty stuff. And in the case of BC and a few other provinces, it would be easy to implement via public auto insurance monopolies. In and of itself, however, I don’t think it gets us […]
Read more