Of the 1%, For the 1%, By the 1%

The first leg of the federal election campaign has featured much debate over who benefits from different proposals. At least indirectly, it has been a conversation about income inequality. What have they been saying? The Harper Conservatives have introduced a number of high-cost measures all of which are based on tax cuts, all of which would widen the rich/poor gap. […]

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Why is BC’s business sector so small?

Despite all the arguments outlined on this blog, and the federal election debates, the race to the bottom in corporate taxation seems to be alive and well in the G-7. The latest move comes from the UK, whose March budget announced a new 2 percentage point reduction in their corporate tax rate. Meanwhile, Canadian provinces have their own corporate tax […]

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NDP’s “Balanced Budget” Platform

Jack Layton unveiled the NDP’s policy platform today.  Among other things, it promises to eliminate the deficit (i.e. balance the federal budget) within four years.  I’m not sure it should. Several years back, I had the opportunity to take a directed reading course from John Smithin.  In addition to being a long-time member of the Progressive Economics Forum, John is […]

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PEF Conference 2011

The Progressive Economics Forum has the following line-up of sessions for this year’s Canadian Economics Association conference on June 3-5 at the University of Ottawa. Thanks very much to Nick Falvo for coordinating our conference activities and putting this schedule together. We are also hosting a summer school the day before and announcing our essay contest winners at the conference. […]

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The Borg and Corporate Taxes

Perhaps the most compelling villain on Star Trek: The Next Generation was the Borg, which seeks to assimilate other groups into its hive. The Macdonald-Laurier Institute seems to be performing this function for Canada’s conservative pundits (although corporate-tax cutters also resemble the Ferengi). Yesterday’s Globe featured an op-ed by Brian Lee Crowley, former President of the Atlantic Institute for Market […]

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Healthcare in Rural and Northern Ontario

The Ontario Nurses’ Association has released a research paper by PEF-member Salimah Valiani on health and healthcare in rural and northern Ontario. It analyzes socio-economic and environmental forces that contribute to lower health outcomes, labour-process data drawn from focus groups with front-line nurses, and how to alleviate the nursing shortage.

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PEF Summer School

The Progressive Economics Forum is organizing a summer school on economic theory and policy in our nation’s capital on June 2. For more information, please see the following poster or contact David Pringle: dpringle [at] ncf.ca  Please download the poster and put it up at your local university campus.  

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Who Benefits from the TFSA?

A shorter version of this analysis was published today in the Globe and Mail’s online business feature Economy Lab. Stephen Harper has unveiled yet another plank in a platform that seems remarkably out of touch with the concerns of an electorate walking on post-recession eggshells. His latest proposal would double the contribution limit to the Tax Free Savings Account (TSFA) […]

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TFSA: Just The Facts Ma’am

Here are the most important facts about the Tax Free Savings Account. Will blog further on this tomorrow. Introduction of the Tax Free Savings Account: January 1, 2009, right at the height of the economic meltdown What’s new: Stephen Harper promises to double the contribution limits to the Tax Free Savings Account, from $5,000 a year to $10,000. REALITY CHECK […]

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Recession Watch

Today, by way of background to tomorrow’s labour force release, , the Canadian Labour Congress released the fifth issue of our Recession Watch bulletin (prepared by my colleague Sylvain Schetagne.) It highlights just how much slack there still was in the job market in February, 2010 compared to before the recession. Despite the rise in jobs since the bottom was […]

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Raising the Minimum Wage

Ken Battle of the Caledon Institute has written a very useful report, “Restoring Minimum Wages in Canada.” It contains a wealth of data on minimum wage trends by province since 1965  and their changing relationship to average wages and to the low income line. Battle shows that, in almost all provinces and territories,  with the notable exception of BC, minimum […]

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The Great Corporate Cash Stash

In response to some recent PEF commentary (now in the mainstream media thanks to today’s Globe article) on corporations in Canada hoarding cash (after-tax profits greater than new investment), PEF member Eric Pineault weighs in with some more detailed analysis: The great corporate cash stash Eric Pineault As we debate the merits and uses of a corporate tax cut, corporations […]

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Corporate Taxes: You Read it Here First

We already have several posts about today’s front-page Globe and Mail story, but that won’t stop me from piling on. Andrew and Marc have noted that today’s story makes points familiar to this blog’s readers. Indeed, posts questioning the alleged relationship between corporate tax cuts and business investment are almost too numerous to list. Jim, Armine, and I have all […]

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Untying the Gordonian knot

First of all, today’s top Globe story on corporate income tax cuts not leading to increased investment is a nice example of “you heard it here first”, so a big pat on the back to Relentlessly Progressive Economics. As we like to say: tomorrow’s conventional wisdom, today. I want to take issue with Stephen Gordon’s response, an effort to torture […]

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Corporate Tax Cuts: Big Costs but no Extra Jobs

Today the CCPA released a study that I authored which examines and debunks one of the biggest contentions of this campaign, that corporate tax cuts create jobs. The payoff of corporate tax cuts has come under increasing scrutiny from various angles, although I focus specifically on job creation. To examine this contention, I took Canada’s biggest public companies, those on […]

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Corporate Tax Cuts and Investment

It is notable that the Globe has run a major story today – on p.1, above the fold in the print edition – drawing attention to the fact that recent  corporate tax rate cuts have not produced an increase in real business investment. Reference is made to the views of labour economists. The Globe story will not be “news” to […]

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Robin Hood Economics

Canada’s economic context at the time of Election 2011 is one of “precarious recovery”, and overall demand conditions are weakened by a few major factors. Unemployment is still just under 8%, which is good compared to the double-digit unemployment of the early 1990s, but not great compared to the expansions of the late 1990s and 2000s. Too much of the […]

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Fulton and Rasmussen on Potash

I do not think anyone can disagree with the conclusion of Murray Fulton and Ken Rasmussen that Saskatchewan should “proceed with a thoughtful and deliberate process that ensures that the province is the long-term beneficiary of this asset.” The provincial opposition is advocating a royalty review process to achieve that goal. The government and potash companies claim that the appropriate […]

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Distributional impact of Tory Income Splitting

I recently posted on the CCPA’s “Making it Count” blog covering election 2011 issues. In that post, I calculated the distributional impacts of the “Family Tax Cut” proposed by the Conservatives that would allow couples with children under 18yrs old to split up to $50,000 of their income. The “Making it Count” post is meant for popular consumption, but I […]

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The US Business of Pollution

From the PEF’s mailbag, here is a guest post by Nick Scott, a recent college graduate and aspiring writer with a passion for environmental conservation. He currently resides in the southeastern United States. The United States and the Business of Pollution In light of the recent environmental tragedy in Japan, there has been a growing awareness of the potential threat […]

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