The Progressive Economics Forum

“I don’t read newspapers, I don’t watch the news.  I figure, if something important happens, someone will tell me.” Justin Trudeau’s surprising confession in a 2001 Globe and Mail essay (“Something I’m Passionate About”, Feb.3) raises three questions: 1)  does he read newspapers and watch the news now?; 2) if yes, does he read the Report […]

This is a guest blog post from Mario Seccareccia, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa. ——- Since the October 2008 federal election, Canadian politicians have been struggling to come to terms with what to all accounts has turned out to be a “lite” version of the 1930s, whose major difference is that today we have […]

Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-editor, Review of Keynesian Economics Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon   First, it was his enthusiastic support and admiration of Margaret Thatcher; now it is his overzealous support of balanced budgets. What’s next? What is Mr. Mulcair ready to do to get the keys to 24 Sussex? How close […]

Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate professor of Economics – Laurentian University Founding co-Editor – Review of Keynesian Economics Follow him on Twitter – @Lprochon This story from the CBC on August 14, 2015.  See story here.   With the NDP riding high in a number of national polls at the moment, there is an increasingly real possibility […]

Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon   Mr. Harper and the Conservatives never miss an opportunity of reminding Canadians that we should vote for them in October in order to ensure economic prosperity in the future. At the heart of this argument is the belief […]

Harper’s economics and geocentrism Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics What a month it’s been. While the first half of 2015 has not been kind to Canadians and the economy, July has proven to be worse. On the economic front, we have had a tumultuous month capping a tumultuous first […]

Mr. Harper’s recession Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate professor of economics, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics   Short of a miracle, Canada is officially in recession, which I predicted back in January. But this recession was wholly avoidable had Mr. Harper and his government abandoned their wicked policies of austerity in favour of a growth-oriented […]

Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics In its recent report released in early June, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made some startling policy announcements: given the general depressed economic condition in the world economy, now is not the time to pay down the national debt if that implies sacrificing […]

Is another recession on its way? Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-editor, Review of Keynesian Economics   Canada’s economy shrank in the first quarter by a whopping 0.6%. Is this the beginning of a new recession? Recessions of course are defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Now we learn today that Canada’s […]

Louis-Philippe Rochon is associate professor of economics at Laurentian University and co-editor of the Review of Keynesian Economics. Originally published by CBC.  See here. In its April budget, the federal government announced it had succeeded in balancing the budget. Such an achievement, however, will prove to be at best a Pyrrhic victory. History shows austerity […]

Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics   With the tabling of a new federal budget on April 21, the Conservatives are trying to reinvent themselves as good economic managers, stalwart of sound finance. But after almost nine years in office, the data simply does not confirm this story. Mr. Harper’s […]

Cross-posted from my blog. I’ve been banging the drum of “slow-motion austerity” for a while and little in the 2015 federal budget suggests any change from the pattern of death by a thousand cuts. This budget is another is a series of unspectacular austerity budgets. Taken together, however, the cuts rapidly add up and budgets […]

CONSERVATIVES MAKING A MOCKERY OF WORKING CANADIANS Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor of Economics, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics   Today, with great fanfare, Minister of Finance, Joe Oliver, tabled his much-delayed budget in the House of Commons. Despite the government’s best effort to confuse Canadians with tales of terrorism, the economy and job […]

LABOUR MARKET DEREGULATIONS NOT WORKING: IMF See original CBC column here. Recent — and potentially watershed — International Monetary Fund (IMF) documents have cast doubt on the merits of labour market deregulation of the last three decades, with important consequences for Canada. But will anyone listen? The last 30 years have not been kind to economic growth and wealth creation. The economic “successes” […]

Balanced budget legislation will be disastrous for Canada Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor of Economics, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics Twitter @LPROCHON   Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s latest muses about introducing balanced budget legislation is the worst policy for Canada, and will doom us to European-style crises and rob future generations of prosperity. While […]

THE FEDERAL BUDGET AND CANADA’S ANNUS HORRIBILIS See Original post here for the CBC. Canada’s Finance Minister Joe Oliver announced a new – and long overdue – federal budget for April 21. With the Canadian economy doing so badly, this budget will be crucial. Will the minister do the right thing and give Canadians a […]

Louis-Philippe ROCHON Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon   With data on the performance of Canada’s labour market released today, many economists and pundits on both sides of the 49th parallel are arguing that what seems to be emerging is two very clear and different paths for […]

The Fredericton Daily Gleaner published an op-ed I wrote about how the province doesn’t have a structural deficit, despite the government claiming it does.  The commentary piece is behind a pay wall so I’ve copied it below. Last month, CUPE New Brunswick also published a paper I wrote on this issue, Deficit Déjà Voodoo: is New […]

Jean-Francois Ponsot Associate Professor of Economics, Université de Grenoble (France) and Louis-Philippe Rochon Associate Professor of Economics, Laurentian University (Canada) Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics ___________________ The final agreement between Greece and the Eurogroup is a disappointment for anyone who held high hopes that Greece would have taken away more than a mere extension to […]

LOUIS-PHILIPPE ROCHON Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-editor, Review of Keynesian Economics Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon ________________________ As I have said before (see here) and will say again: any solution to Greek’s tragedy, which involves keeping the Euro as a currency is a second-best solution, unless the appropriate institutional changes are adopted. Anything short of […]

Posted earlier as an opinion piece for CBC.  See original post here (this post slightly modified from original) By Louis-Philippe Rochon Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon   Much was at stake earlier this week when finance ministers from G20 countries met in Istanbul to discuss Greece and the state of the world economy in light of recent […]

This is a guest blog post from Louis-Philippe Rochon. Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon. — What a tumultuous few weeks we witnessed in Greece. Though the victory of Syriza was ill-received in particular in Germany and the European Central Bank, it was nonetheless a resounding victory for democracy. This victory may now spill into other […]

It’s a bit of a headscratcher. First, Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak builds his whole campaign around a promise to create one million new jobs in Ontario over eight years, then one of his first campaign commitments threats  is to reduce the number of Ontario government employees by 100,000, together with a wage freeze for every […]

The current edition of Canadian Dimension magazine has a fascinating series of articles on episodes of economic transition around the world (more of them bad than good in recent times, of course).  It’s a very thoughtful & informative collection, and I highly recommend it (and every progressive economist should subscribe to CD, by the way). […]

On Tuesday, April 8, results of the Mental Health Commission of Canada‘s At Home/Chez Soi homelessness study will be released at an Ottawa press conference. The study followed more than 2,000 participants in five Canadian cities.  All were homeless when the study began. Half of them received the Housing First intervention, and half of them did […]

Buried in the federal government’s recent Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections are figures showing the Harper government is set to squeeze federal government’s role to the smallest it has been in seventy years.   (Bill Curry at the Globe also just wrote about this, but without figures further back than 1958). Total federal government spending as a share […]

The second-quarter GDP numbers confirm that Canada’s continuing “recovery,” such as it is, is still balancing very precariously on a knife-edge between expansion and contraction.  The various sources of growth vary widely in their current momentum.  The overall net balance is barely positive.  And coming austerity in the public sector could very much push the balance […]

Last fall, Greek magazine editor Kostas Vaxevanis published in his magazine Hot Doc a list of 2,000 wealthy Greeks who were hiding taxable savings in the Geneva branch of HSBC. The list had been furnished years earlier by the then French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to the Greek government, who did nothing in regards to chasing after […]

The IMF’s latest delivery of the World Economic outlook contains an interesting analysis of the current “non” recovery in terms of a divergence between fiscal and monetary policy, the first between restrictive and procyclical in nature and the second being accommodating and reinforcing a financial expansion. As argued here by the IMF economists who worked […]

One the most amazing things about this budget is that one of its three focuses will actually be the opposite of what it’s touting.  You’ll likely hear that $14 billion will be spent on infrastructure over the next 10 years (actually you may hear much bigger numbers but they just re-announce existing programs like the […]