The Progressive Economics Forum

An article in today’s Globe and Mail discusses some new research funding for the University of Alberta.  In particular, the article notes:
The U of A ranks second in total research funding, behind only U of T and up from fifth in 2006. This year, the U of A will spend $514-million on research, more than [...]

Perhaps by now you have seen the TV commercials for Bell touting its much faster 3G network for web phones. Rogers is suing on the basis that Bell is basically making this up. What’s interesting about it, though, is that Bell, Telus and others entering the web phone (or should we just say iPhone) business [...]

Anti-trust lawyer David Balto, with the Center for American Progress, recently made the case against Ticketmaster’s proposed merger with LiveNation in testimony to the US Congress. The testimony also provides an excellent summary of Ticketmaster’s existing monopoly, some of which I excerpt below:
Let’s be straightforward about one transparent fact: Ticketmaster is a monopolist and exercises [...]

It is so nice to see the backlash against Ticketmaster’s monopolistic practices. Two class action suits have been filed in Canada over the past weeks, and south of the border anti-trust alarm bells are ringing due to Ticketmaster’s proposed merger with Live Nation.
Tickets sales have become something close to a natural monopoly, and as such [...]

Stéphane Dion has branded Jack Layton an “old-style socialist” with a “job-killing” platform. The C. D. Howe Institute’s Finn Poschmann echoes this view, arguing that corporate tax cuts are needed to keep Canada internationally competitive. (The C. D. Howe Institute is financed and governed by corporate Canada.)
Of course, corporate taxes are but one of many [...]

I wrote a paper for a volume on the OECD and competition policy last year, but the editors ultimately wanted less policy analysis and more on the inner workings of the OECD, so it got dropped. But a lot of the content is relevant to today’s release of the Competition Policy Panel report, so I’ve [...]

The report has been released:
http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/cprp-gepmc.nsf/en/h_00040e.html
This corporate dominated panel has put forward a set of highly pro business recommendations. Given the circumstances in which it was set up - major concerns over foreign takeovers of Canadian resource giants like Inco and Falconbridge - this is actually slightly surprising.
The key recommendation is that only very large foreign [...]

“Dion Would Wield Tax Axe to Spur Growth” was the headline in Tuesday’s Financial Post. The story reported that “Mr. Dion said his party would look to cut taxes across the board” but that “He would not elaborate on which taxes he would cut.” However, Monday’s Liberal press release seemed quite clear about which taxes [...]

This post is in response to the following excellent comment from Stephen Moore, the man who will trounce Ralph Goodale in the next federal election (or at least do better than I did):
April 2007 testimony before the parliamentary committee on International Trade saw Industry Canada, DFAIT reps and others stress the importance of the SPP [...]

An interesting story in The Tyee that picks up on evidence from the Conrad Black Trial (from a story in the Globe  as blogged here), and runs with it. It is a telling insider story, one that nicely clears up the difference between the notion of competitive markets and the real world of capitalism and [...]

The big news story (Globe article here and political analysis here) of the day is the proposed merger between Telus and BCE (aka Bell), and what the government should do about it. Below are a few notes to add some context, and an alternative, to merger mania.
First, was it not just a year ago that [...]