On May 28th, 61 Canadian economists (myself included) signed the following letter urging the federal government to instruct the Bank of Canada to consider full employment and not only inflation when conducting interest rate decisions. It was through the great organization of Mario Seccareccia that this was made possible and has received reviews by several media commentators, notably Barrie McKenna and Neil […]
Read moreWe, the undersigned economists, support the decision to increase the minimum wage in Ontario to $15 an hour. Raising the wage floor makes good economic sense. Today, Ontario’s minimum wage is $11.40 per hour. Adjusted for inflation, this is barely one dollar higher than its value in 1977. Yet over the same four decades, the average productivity of workers has […]
Read moreIf you are in Ottawa or close by, and are interested in the ideas and debates that are shaping today’s economy, then we have a summer school for you. PEF Summer School 2016: Expanding Economic Thinking Venue: Room 1007, Faculty of Social Science Building (FSS), 120 University, University of Ottawa, Parking Map Date: Thursday June 2, 2016 Times: 8:00am-5:15pm Learn […]
Read more20 Years of Expanding Economic Thinking Venue: Bronfman Building, 1001 Sherbrooke Street West, McGill University (Room TBD) Date: Thursday May 31, 2018 Time: 8am – 5:45pm, followed by a social Learn in a day what you may have missed from a year of regular classes about the cutting edge economic issues that everyone is talking about. Our one-day Summer School will […]
Read moreA guest blog post from Mario Seccareccia and Louis-Philippe Rochon. After learning that the Canada Revenue Agency is auditing  the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives  on the grounds that it allegedly engages in politically partisan, biased and one-sided research activity,  a number of university professors  have drawn up an open letter asking the Minister of National Revenue place a moratorium on its […]
Read moreUPDATE (Feb. 12): Carol Goar reports this statement on page A17 of today’s Toronto Star. To add your signature to it, please e-mail your name, title and institution to Mario Seccareccia at mseccare@uottawa.ca Statement by 70 Canadian Economists Against Austerity We, the undersigned, strongly urge the federal government to stop implementing fiscal austerity measures just to achieve its political goal […]
Read moreThe PEF marked our 15th anniversary at last weekend’s Canadian Economics Association conference in Montreal. Guillaume Hébert from the Institut de Recherche et d’Informations Socio-économiques (IRIS) delivered the following keynote address in French. Thanks very much to Mathieu Dufour for translating it into English. **** Thank you very much for inviting me to give this keynote address. I am honoured. […]
Read moreHi all, Last time I was in Quebec City, I got tear gassed by my government during the 2001 Summit of the Americas. I’m sure next week’s trip for the CEA conference will be much better than that. In fact, we have an amazing line up of panels, including a new Galbraith lecture from this year’s winner, John Loxley. Thanks […]
Read morePlease join us in Quebec City this May 28-30 for another round of PEF sessions at the Canadian Economics Association meetings. Here is the tentative PEF line-up for the meetings. Friday, 09:00 – 10:30 PEF I: Was Financialization Rational for Capital? Organizer: Robert Chernomas (U. of Manitoba) -Fletcher Baragar, “Why Financialization, Why Now?†-Robert Chernomas, “From Growth Stagnation to Financial […]
Read moreLettre ouverte de la part d’économistes canadiens à propos de la crise économique actuelle et la réponse du gouvernement qui s’impose La crise financière mondiale qui s’aggrave, la chute des prix des matières premières à l’échelle mondiale et le risque grandissant d’une récession mondiale dévoilent des faiblesses inquiétantes de l’économie canadienne. Le simple fait de nous en remettre à nos […]
Read moreThe Progressive Economics Forum’s open letter is now making the rounds. Signatories include four chairs of economics departments, two former Presidents of the Canadian Economics Association, a former federal Secretary of State (Finance), and a former Quebec Minister of Industry. Here’s the text and the 88 signatories: Open Letter from Canadian Economists on the Current Economic Crisis and the Appropriate […]
Read morePEF Steering Committee member Mathieu Dufour passed along this message: For the French readers amongst you, there is a debate currently going on in Le Devoir about the disconnect between wage and productivity growth. I first wrote an Op-Ed stating said disconnect and asking how long we were going to ask people to increase their productivity without paying them more. […]
Read moreThe CCPA released a study today by PEF steering committee members Ellen Russell and Mathieu Dufour. Rising Profit Shares, Falling Wage Shares is the published version of research they presented during the PEF session on ineuquality, at the CEA conference. The full study is available here and the press release says: Canada’s economy grew steadily and workers’ productivity improved by […]
Read moreUpdated June 2023 Chair: Anupam Das, Dept. of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies, Mount Royal University Secretary-Treasurer: Jim Stanford, Dept. of Economics, McMaster University Membership Secretary: David Pringle, Independent Economist CEA Panels Coordinator: Ian Hudson, Dept. of Economics, University of Manitoba Essay Contest Coordinator: Kevin Young, Dept. of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst Webmistress: Angella MacEwen, Canadian Union of Public […]
Read more2023 Essay Contest Results Graduate category Winner: Ekaterina Alekhanova (Carleton University) Summertime Sadness: Time Sensitivity of Electricity Savings from a Behavioral Nudge Alekhanova replicates a large randomized control trial of a behavioral intervention regarding information on home energy use in Medicine Hat, Alberta. She finds that while intervention induced energy savings on aggregate, because of the hourly savings profile of households, […]
Read moreThe Canadian Economics Association annual conference is just ten days away. Writers are furiously writing up their papers for presentation (or like me, are procrastinating until the pressure builds); discussants are plotting clever things to say in response to those papers; and others are just figuring out where they will be sleeping in Halifax. As in the past, the Progressive […]
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