The leakiest budget in Canadian history is now in the public domain, and will not lead to the fall of the Harper government. The budget was preceded by numerous press conferences held by Ministers (with the PM uncharacteristically out of sight), leaving some details to be filled in on budget day, largely tax measures, but in the end it featured […]
Read moreThe PEF’s 2009 Student Essay Contest Is Now Open USE YOUR ECONOMICS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE! Tired of learning economics that seems more interested in justifying the status quo, than in explaining the real world – and changing it? Then join thousands of economics students around the world: put your economics to work in the cause of social change. PRIZES $1000: […]
Read moreEveryone’s favourite non-issue came up again at last week’s First Minister’s meeting. The outcome of two amendments to the Agreement on Internal Trade was another bit of “progress”, I suppose (see backgrounder below). As usual, the release offers no details on actual trade barriers that are presumed to exist in Canada. With the long-standing margarine case settled as of last […]
Read moreThe best prof I ever had doing my undergrad at Western was David Laidler. I took a fourth year economic policy course with him, and learned a lot, especially a certain horror known as inflation (John Crow soon embarked on a disastrous war on inflation in the early 1990s that still sends shivers up many of our spines). Interestingly, Laidler […]
Read moreThe PEF got a plug in the Toronto Star today. This article by Linda Diebel noted our open letter on the economic crisis and interviewed a few of our signatories. Overall it is a good article and the comments of a few signatories are excellent. We really appreciate the plug, but I should note, as PEF Chair, that those interviewed […]
Read moreThe CCPA released today a new study by myself and Toby Sanger on the distribution of BC’s carbon tax and recycling regime. I’ve probably leaked most of the findings in various blog posts in recent months, but the full meal deal is now available for download here. Toby and I modeled the carbon tax by quintile based on household survey […]
Read moreLast night NDP Opposition Leader Carole James delivered her own televised address to the province, following on the Premier’s underwhelming address last week. This was a much better effort from James, with the speech probably aimed square at tomorrow’s two by-elections in Vancouver. With the BC election is still seven months away, this tit-for-tat game could get quite interesting by […]
Read moreBC Premier Gordon Campbell made a live address last night about the impact of the financial and economic crisis on the province, and what his government is going to do about it. I was keen to see what creative projects Campbell had in mind to take the edge of a recession that has already hit in Interior and Coastal communities […]
Read moreThere is a new line of thinking over at the Bank of Canada: rather than raising interest rates to maintain the inflation target at 2%, the Bank is now stating that it might have to cut rates (beyond the 25 bp reduction today and 50 bp a couple weeks ago) to maintain the target. From a central bank that in […]
Read moreLast night when I was watching the US presidential debate on Newsworld, the ticker told a one-line story that the Conference Board of Canada’s latest forecast for 2008 economic growth has been lowered to 0.8%. It was a redemption or sorts because back in February I testified before the House Finance Committee with Glen Hodgson of the Conference Board. I […]
Read moreWhat irks me about the Harperites’ non-response to the economic crisis is their claim that they have responded by bringing in tax cuts, announced in the Economic and Fiscal Update almost a year ago, and perfectly timed to the occasion. There is an argument to be made for tax cuts as a fiscal stimulus, although I think they will do […]
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 moreSince Galbraith has appeared in two recent posts, a timely salvo came to me from Christopher Nowlin: I happen to think that Galbraith’s 1958 classic, The Affluent Society, speaks more loudly to today’s social, economic, political and environmental troubles in North America than it did to post WWII America’s. I even gave a public talk to this effect in April of this […]
Read moreBack in June, we co-awarded the first John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics to Kari Levitt and Mel Watkins. Unfortunately, there was a snag with the transcription of Kari’s lecture and she had to recreate it. We now have the text and have posted it below. So congrats once again to both Kari and Mel for their outstanding contributions to […]
Read moreJames Galbraith bats this one out of the park: Years ago, I realized that the free-market, supply-side crowd, true conservatives who’d ridden high with Reagan, dislike Bush as much as I do. I speak of the hard money, low-tax, Wall Street Journal, deregulate-and-privatize team, the nemeses of my youth, people like Bruce Bartlett, Paul Craig Roberts, the late Jude Wanniski. […]
Read moreYesterday, the Premier’s hand-picked Climate Action Team released its final report to the government. As is often the case with government, the CAT consisted of a range of “stakeholders”, although with one glaring omission: no representation from labour. The CAT has been deliberating for several months on how to meet the 2020 target of a 33% reduction in greenhouse gas […]
Read moreAs reported by Julian Beltram of Canadian Press: The federal government has started the new fiscal year in a rare deficit position, announcing yesterday it was $517 million in the red after two months as tax cuts and a slowing economy sliced into revenues. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said revenues fell $1.6 billion combined in April and May, 4.1 per […]
Read moreRob Rainer of the National Anti-Poverty Organization has audited the federal Liberals’ Green Shift plan for anti-poverty measures and found it lacking a comprehensive approach. I’ve excerpted below the main points in his brief, which is not on the NAPO web site and should not be taken as the voice of NAPO on the matter (the brief also has footnotes […]
Read moreA well-intentioned article in the Vancouver Sun seeks to explain carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems. A worthy objective, but the article really aims to pigeonhole various alternatives in terms of political parties. It ends up taking a far-too-simplified view that goes something like this: The debate is being played out in British Columbia, where the Liberal government and New Democratic […]
Read moreWith this whole Internet thing, I have not cracked a copy of The Yellow Pages in years. Somehow I assumed that at some point they would just stop delivering them in favour of online distribution or give me the option for a CD-ROM. Alas, no. So after receiving the bulk that is the Yellow Pages on my doorstep this week, […]
Read moreAs a fan of satire, I love the medium of cartoons. Here are a few favourites who consistently produce good stuff, and a couple recent posts. Tom the Dancing Bug, explains the economics of gas prices and tells how America was destroyed. This Modern World says Farewell My Lovely Economy and soothes Republican angst. And for Canadian content, it is […]
Read moreBC’s public accounts for 2007/08 were released yesterday, closing the fiscal year with a surplus of $2.886 billion. This marks BC’s fourth truly massive surplus in a row, after surpluses of $2.575 billion in 2004/05, $3.060 billion in 2005/06, and $4.056 billion in 2006/07. Like all of those budgets, the 2007/08 budget as tabled in February 2007 vastly understated the […]
Read moreI’m recently back from a family vacation, which consisted in driving down to Northern California and back, camping along the way. Our 1992 Corolla keeps on rolling, and in my mind it is better to keep it humming and wait it out for something electric in a few years time, than to buy a new hybrid that emits a third […]
Read moreHere is the latest from the Conference Board: Its outlook projects Canada’s economy to grow 1.7 per cent this year – a far more bullish prediction than the Bank of Canada, which on Tuesday revised downward its growth forecast to one per cent this year. What is interesting is how the CP report calls them “bullish”. Back in February, I […]
Read moreYesterday, the BC government released its updated Climate Action Plan. A glossy affair, it nonetheless puts text to all of the myriad actions the BC government is taking on climate. Looking at it all, it is hard to say they are just “greenwashing”, though personally I would like to see even more aggressive action now. But as the government, they […]
Read moreThe front page banner headline from the Vancouver Sun: B.C. prefers NDP’s Carbon tax plan: Tax industrial polluters, not consumers, 82% tell pollster It is painful to keep reading because the poll in question is based on inaccurate information about how the carbon tax actually works. Industrial polluters are subject to the tax to the extent that they burn fossil […]
Read moreI 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 excerpted the relevant bits below. […]
Read moreThe BC NDP’s environment critic, Shane Simpson, wrote me to tell me why he disagrees with the BC carbon tax. With his permission, I quote: The more I learn the more clear it becomes what a regressive and inept tax it is and why it needs to be opposed as vigorously as possible. It hurts public services – burnaby schools […]
Read moreHaving already eaten the NDP’s lunch on the climate change file, the BC Liberals (the second-term, more moderate Liberals) threaten to do the same on early learning and child care. In the 2008 Throne Speech, the government said that it would study expansion of full-day kindergarten to five-year-olds, then to four- and three-year olds. But they are smart: having resisted […]
Read more