A useful study from Industrial Relations (65/4; Fall, 2010.). Apparently we don’t screw things up for innovative firms. What Do Unions Do to Innovation? An Empirical Examination of the Canadian Private Sector Scott Walsworth Associate Professor and Hanlon Scholar in International Business, Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada walsworth@edwards.usask.ca SUMMARY This article uses Canadian national data […]
Read moreDavid Hall at the University of Greenwich in the U.K. recently produced a really good report on Why we need public spending. It’s over 70 pages in length, is well-written, has a great deal of really useful material from around the world (including charts and graphics and extensive references) making the argument for why public spending is so important from an […]
Read moreHere’s a new take on bringing economic theory to the masses — a rap battle between Keynes and Hayek. What’s amazing about it is the amount of solid (if not plain nerdy) content this video packs into such a short time. It’s fun to watch for sure (very high production values), but you get that much more out of it […]
Read moreAmong the concerns about the HST that we at the CCPA have raised was the poor timing of the tax change. From my pre-budget piece last September: If British Columbians respond to the HST by reducing their consumer spending, the timing of the HST introduction may actually slow down the economic recovery, which should be getting under way next summer. […]
Read moreYesterday’s GDP numbers were worse than they seemed. And they highlighted a curious feature of modern capitalism. Nowadays, non-financial businesses have become major net lenders to the rest of the economy. Instead of borrowing money (in various forms: debt, equity, etc.) from other sectors to finance real investment, non-financial businesses are not even reinvesting their own cash flow. The surplus […]
Read moreUPDATE (September 1): Quoted in The Toronto Star. Canadian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew modestly in the second quarter, but that modest growth returned GDP to a level not seen since before the economic crisis. Recent Developments: The Second Quarter Canada’s output expanded at a quarterly rate of 0.5%, which corresponds to an annual rate of 2.0%. Such growth would […]
Read moreToday’s Toronto Star features an op-ed by John Cartwright, President of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. (I once had the chance to hear John speak at a press conference in Toronto and found him to be an oustanding public speaker. But I digress…) In the piece, he argues that “we” (I think he means both the Harper government and the […]
Read moreBelatedly, two days after the fact, the Globe picked up on Bank of Canada governor Carney’s discussion of the Bank’s model of the world economy (I blogged about that speech here) at a speech to the Ottawa Economics Association (OEA) last Wednesday. The Globe spun the story in an unusual way by suggesting that the Bank and its analysis (using […]
Read moreThe media and pundits parsed Mark Carney’s speech today to the Ottawa Economics Association (OEA) every which way to Sunday today and concluded that Carney had effectively signaled the Bank’s intention to raise its target for the overnight interest rate sooner rather than later. But in all the hand wringing about the inevitability of rate hikes (do people ignore Japan […]
Read moreYesterday, the Fraser Institute published a new report, which argues that the government stimulus did not drive Canadian economic growth in the last two quarters of 2009 and suggests that government spending on infrastructure was useless for the economy. The report earned the scorn of Finance Minister Flaherty, who was quoted in the Vancouver Sun calling the report “poorly done […]
Read moreThe American scholar Alfred Crosby writes of the neo-Europes, the offshoots of Europe, the products of the settling of the New World while unsettling those whose world it already was. James Belich, an historian – who writes like an economic historian – of New Zealand now teaching in Australia, has written a massive and splendid book, Replenishing the Earth: The […]
Read moreAs the budget yak-fest approaches, the focus is on how we’re going to balance the books. People pointing out we have bigger fish to fry – like making a dent in the nation’s $125 billion infrastructure deficit, addressing growing poverty, or preparing for a massive wave of retirements – are viewed as off-topic. But simply balancing the books is what’s […]
Read moreI’m posting this CSLS media release since the two studies look well worth reading. They can be found at http://www.csls.ca/ CSLS Releases New Estimates of Index of Economic Well-being for Canada and OECD Countries Ottawa, December 3, 2009 – On September 14, 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy released the report of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and […]
Read moreI recommend reading at least the executive summary of the Stiglitz Commission. The Commission was appointed by President Sarkozy of France to look at statistical measures of economic performance and social progress. It brought together most of the leading international experts in the area – including Amartya Sen who served as Adviser to the Chair – and is a highly […]
Read moreBC’s recession started in 2008. That is the upshot of today’s release of Statistics Canada’s Provincial Economic Accounts, which provides the first estimates of BC’s GDP for 2008. Unlike national data, which are provided quarterly and on a timely basis, we have to wait about four months to tally the various provincial beans. These numbers will inevitably be revised in […]
Read moreIn the last few months, governments here and abroad have made every effort to “turn on the taps” of credit — in Canada, we have more than half a dozen such programs (and counting) under the banner of the EFF (Extraordinary Financing Framework), including (but not limited to): the IMPP (InsuranceMortgage Purchase Program); the CSCF (Canadian Secured Credit Facility); the […]
Read moreIn today’s Vancouver Sun, Neils Veldhuis and Milagros Palacios act as yang to my yin on the oped page. Their pre-budget oped seems strangely distant from the day-to-day reality of a recession that is unfolding in BC and elsewhere. Their response could have been written two or five years ago: the solution is to cut taxes and spending, and all […]
Read morePEF people are not the only ones who correctly anticipated some of our recent economic and fiscal events. Jamie Galbraith also saw a lot of this coming in his book The Predator State. With no further ado, I’m posting an enthusiastic review of the book by fellow traveler and Sorbonne PhD economics graduate Henry Sader:
Read moreMy take on today’s second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) release follows: Economy Shrinks, But Dodges Recession Canada’s GDP was lower at the end of June ($1,327,118 million) than at the end of last year ($1,328,606 million). Although the Canadian economy is smaller now than it was two quarters ago, it is technically not in recession because it did not shrink […]
Read moreIn Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Brian Milner summarized Vitaliy Katsenelson’s historical analysis of American stock markets. He distinguishes “bull markets” from “range-bound markets”: . . . growth patterns may be similar. What separates the two are stock valuations, which soar to such unrealistic heights during raging bull periods that it takes years for them to come back down to normal […]
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 moreThe Fraser Institute released its annual report on economic freedom yesterday. As always, the report attempts to establish a causal relationship between its measure of “economic freedom” and economic growth. The first major problem is that economic growth is clearly driven by other more important factors. With respect to Newfoundland and Labrador, the Fraser Institute acknowledges, “the province has benefited […]
Read moreCUPE has published the June 2008 issue of the Economic Climate for Bargaining publication that I put together on a quarterly basis. Previous issues are also available through this link at our website.   In addition to regular items on national and provincial economic forecasts and analysis of recent employment, inflation and wage developments, this latest issue includes: A very brief primer on […]
Read moreI’m surprised that Jim Stanford has not made a plug for his new book on this site. A modest one, our Jimbo. So let me say a few words about Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism. Jim has outdone himself on this one. So many times I have had people ask me for a straightforward […]
Read moreEver wonder what the Bank of Canada might do in the event of staflation (high/rising inflation & high /rising unemployment)? Wonder no more. In an interview with LaPresse, our new Governor Mark Carney states, in no uncertain terms, that the Bank’s objective would remain the same as it has been since the early 1990s, namely keeping inflation on target at […]
Read moreMost environmentalists would probably say no. But I’m going to make the opposite case here. The thing we need to remember about economic growth is that over long periods of time the products we consume and the processes by which we produce them change dramatically. As my old prof Dick Lipsey pointed out repeatedly, we have a higher standard of […]
Read moreAh, the confluence of the events! The tabling of a “prudent†federal budget for uncertain times, followed a week later by news of slowing economic growth. Of course, rumors of the economy’s imminent decline may be greatly exaggerated, given January’s jobs report and trade data. But let’s carry forth with the economic accounts data. Earlier, Erin and Toby drew […]
Read moreThe latest from the Fraser Institute concludes that BC’s 2001 tax cuts spurred economic growth, investment and all other good things. To their credit, this is a far more sophisticated analysis than one usually sees from the Fraser. Rather than relying on the in-house talent, they farmed the work out to University of Alberta economist Bev Dahlby, known for advocating […]
Read moreStatistics Canada released an interesting but utterly misleading technical paper last week on Canada’s supposed “Reversal of Fortune.” They examined Canada-U.S. comparisons in national income (a concept that is subtly but importantly different from GDP, as I’ll explain in a minute), and decided that Canada has become the star economic performer of the continent. Since 2002, our real national per […]
Read moreOver at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Stephen Gordon has assembled an interesting comparison of the current expansion vis-a-vis the previous two (roughly, the 1980s and the 1990s), benchmarking performance on a number of key indicators. One of his conclusions is rather unusual: he finds strong real wage growth over the past four years. This is contrary to the numbers I have […]
Read more