The Progressive Economics Forum

The Economic Costs of Kyoto: Straw Men and One-Sided Assumptions

April 25, 2007 Andrew Jackson 3 comments

A number of key critical points on the federal government’s “analysis” of the economic impacts of Kyoto – http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/media/m_123/toc_eng.html – have already been made, including by Erin. http://progecon.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/inconvenient-truth/ A lot hinges on whether continued adherence to the protocol means that very large cuts have to be made to domestic emissions in a very short period of time – a key […]

Income Trusts and Economic Nationalism

April 25, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

Andrew Coyne makes several good points in todayâ€™s column on the economic-nationalist case for income trusts. He is skeptical, but for different reasons than the other Andrew and I. Like most of Coyneâ€™s economic commentary, this column displays what I would characterize as excessive faith in the efficiency of free markets. Interestingly, he does not mention that Dion and May […]

A world parliament?

April 24, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

George Monbiot summarizes the case for a world parliament, drawing on a new campaign being launched this week. I’ve always thought this to be a far-sighted and much-needed, if politically impossible, idea. Dare to dream, I suppose. Perhaps by the time I die the world will have something like a truly global parliament. (And if they could have those levitating […]

New report links economic success, investment in training

April 24, 2007 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

http://www.ccl-cca.ca/NR/rdonlyres/F6226BEA-0502-4A2D-A2E0-6A7C450C5212/0/connecting_dots_EN.pdf Based on the Executive Summary, this report seems worth a read. It seems to go beyond the common rhetoric on the need for more ‘human capital development in a knowledge-based economy’ to take a serious look at economic returns to firms from training – though the scale of the suggested benefits seems rather high. I’ve always leaned to the […]

Wheat Board Plebiscite Results

April 24, 2007 Erin Weir 4 comments

Yesterdayâ€™s Tyee article by Horner and Orchard provides a good historical overview of the Wheat Board, but does not mention the recent plebiscite based on which the ConservativesÂ propose to remove the Boardâ€™s barley monopoly. It is worth explaining why this flawed plebiscite does not giveÂ the ConservativesÂ much of a democratic mandate, rather than ignoring the plebiscite altogether. Of 80,000 ballots sent […]

Attacking the Canadian Wheat Board

April 23, 2007 Marc Lee 10 comments

This article from The Tyee reviews the history of the CWB and recent attacks by the Harper government: Harper’s Hit on Grain Farmers: Tories will aid US firms by gutting Canadian Wheat Board By Albert Horner and David Orchard TheTyee.ca For a year the Harper government has been threatening to destroy the power of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). Agriculture […]

Saskatchewan Federation of Labour on TILMA

April 23, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

Larry Hubich has sent an open letter to the Premier of Saskatchewan on TILMA. The letter cites much of the Lee, Weir, Grady, and Shrybman material discussed on this blog.

The Nordics are embarassing us again

April 23, 2007 Marc Lee One comment

A lovely counterpoint to last week in Canadian politics on greenhouse gas emission reductions, Kyoto and Minister Baird: Norway Plans to Go ‘Carbon Neutral’ April 20, 2007 â€” Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday proposed to make Norway the first “carbon neutral” state by 2050 and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020. “We are committed […]

The opposite of entrepreneur

April 23, 2007 Marc Lee One comment

Like many people, I admire the entrepreneur. Risk-taking, hard-working, value-adding, employment-creating â€“ such are the virtues of entrepreneurs. I wish our schools taught people more about how to be entrepreneurial, as opposed to “business” degrees that teach people to be middle-managers in big corporations. We too often are lectured about the need to impose supply-side remedies to boost entrepreneurship â€“ […]

Palley Targets Inflation Targeting

April 23, 2007 Erin Weir 2 comments

Other than the occasional call for Canada to adopt the US dollar, discussion of Canadian monetary policy mainly consists of the C. D. Howe Institute and the Bank of Canada praising inflation targeting. As Thomas Palley reminds us, another perspective exists: The Case Against Inflation Targeting A few months ago the Federal Reserve seemed to be inexorably moving toward adopting […]

Another Inconvenient Truth

April 20, 2007 Erin Weir 10 comments

Al Gore has famously and correctly characterized the scientific consensus about global warming as “An Inconvenient Truth”. In todayâ€™s Financial Post, Buzz Hargrove identifies another “inconvenient truth” for Canadian progressives: “it is impossible to achieve Kyoto targets in the time frames spelled out in Kyoto.” Canadaâ€™s Kyoto commitment was relatively modest and achievable. However, after signing it, the Liberal government […]

Buzz on Kyoto

April 20, 2007 Andrew Jackson 4 comments

From today’s FP – I’ve dropped the misleading headline – this is a much more reasoned piece than some recently and widely circulated short quotes from Buzz on the implications of Kyoto for workers. Friday, April 20, 2007 Â As the president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, I often find myself taking controversial positions, usually with a strong opinion […]

The Great Kyoto Job Scare

April 19, 2007 Andrew Jackson One comment

Some good points in this piece. I just love Baird’s argument that “275,000 Canadians would lose their jobs, gasoline prices would jump 60 per cent and natural gas prices would double.” Sounds like just what has happened over the past couple of years as the result of the oil boom. Did 250,000 manufacturing workers lose their jobs because of […]

From socialist conspiracy to economic apocalypse

April 19, 2007 Marc Lee 3 comments

The framing of the Kyoto Accord by the Harper government, that is. I suppose this is progress for Harper, who had essentially dismissed climate change a year ago, but as the polls moved he has had to follow. I’m not as pessimistic about the economic fall-out if we are creative in developing just transition strategies for affected workers and are […]

Government Plans on Kyoto – Response from Climate Action Network

April 17, 2007 Andrew Jackson One comment

OTTAWA — Canadaâ€™s greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution will continue rising for several more years and remain well above Kyoto targets beyond 2020 if government plans leaked to Canadian Press and reviewed by the Climate Action Network Canada/RÃ©seau action climat Canada (CAN-RAC) are implemented. The organization expects the federal governmentâ€™s proposal for a new national GHG target to be […]

Dion Swerves Right of Harper

April 17, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

Apparently following Andrew Coyneâ€™s advice, Dion seems to be positioning himself to the right of Harper on tax policy.Â This move casts further doubt on Dionâ€™s promise of a progressive alliance with the Greens. When the Conservatives cut the GST, the Liberal response was not that this move would take money away from important public services, but that it would […]

Stern, Sachs, and Stiglitz on the Economics of Climate Change

April 17, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

A report by Felix Salmon from the front lines of Columbia University on some issues arising out of the Stern review. I’d love to see a transcript of this session. Stern, Sachs, and Stiglitz on the Economics of Climate Change … I managed to ask Stern the question I’ve been wanting to ask him for a couple months now … […]

Toxics and our failed regulatory system

April 16, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

The Globe and Mail deserves full credit for continuing to publish stories on environmental toxins. After being in circulation for decades, many chemicals are now (slowly) being put to the test, and some may even be taken out of circulation some time in the next decade. A first step being taken by the feds is labelling of what is in […]

Green Strategy and the SPP

April 16, 2007 Erin Weir 3 comments

At the conference a couple of weeks ago where Elizabeth May mused about income trusts, she also committed to make opposition to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) the centrepiece of the Green Partyâ€™s forthcoming election platform. The SPP is an arrangement between Canada, the US, and Mexico that seeks to accelerate tar-sands development, among other objectives. It is very […]

Canada’s Curious Deglobalization

April 15, 2007 Jim Stanford 6 comments

Everyone knows globalization is an irresistible worldwide process enveloping every economy, including Canadaâ€™s, in its market-driven tentacles.Â Right? Wrong. In fact, since 2000, Canadaâ€™s economy has been curiously de-globalizing before our eyes.Â The importance of global markets to our employment and production has been diminishing, not increasing â€“ and at a remarkable pace.Â Year-end GDP numbers for 2006, recently released […]

Canadian International Assistance – Dismal Performance

April 14, 2007 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

Canadian Aid Performance Declines in 2006: The OECDâ€™s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) released preliminary statistics for ODA for 2006 and Canada is near the bottom, tied with Australia for 15thÂ position among 22 donors.Â Â At 0.30% of our Gross National Income (GNI) in 2006, Â CanadaÂ is down from 0.34% in 2005.Â In both years, Canadian aid, along with other […]

Fear and Loathing on Bay Street

April 14, 2007 Erin Weir 4 comments

Budget 2007 made interest on funds borrowed in Canada to finance foreign business operations nondeductible from Canadian corporate taxes. Finance Canada suggested that this arcane reform would raise relatively little revenue and, initially, business barely seemed to notice. More than a week after the budget, a Globe editorial and a Financial Post op-ed criticized the change as a huge â€˜tax […]

Income Trusts and â€œHollowing Outâ€

April 14, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

In Thursdayâ€™s Financial Post, the Canadian Association of Income Funds articulated the argument suggested by Elizabeth May: the devaluation of income trusts has made them vulnerable to takeovers by foreign private-equity. Certainly, many enterprises that paid little tax as income trusts will continue to pay little tax by converting to new organizational forms, such as private equity or publicly-traded corporations. […]

Central Nova by the Numbers

April 13, 2007 Erin Weir 6 comments

StÃ©phane Dion, who is not progressive, has allied with Elizabeth May, who is not progressive, ostensibly to prevent progressive vote-splitting. As Andrew Coyne notes in tomorrowâ€™s National Post column, this maneuver is clearly directed against the federal NDP, which is progressive. It is worth recalling the 2006 election results in Central Nova, the riding where Dion has pledged to prevent […]

We Went to Separate Schools Together

April 13, 2007 Erin Weir 2 comments

Todayâ€™s Ottawa Citizen has a good editorial on the existence of two publicly-funded school systems in several provinces. The original concept of one system for Protestants and another for Catholics has evolved into a “public”, secular system and a “separate” system that teaches some Roman Catholicism but is also attended by many non-Catholics. Many schools cannot afford needed supplies, many […]

International Temporary Workers

April 13, 2007 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

I’ve pasted below an excellent column from the Toronto Star by Carol Goar. The CLC’s analysis of the issue and policy prescriptions are avaialable from: http://www.canadianlabour.ca/index.php/Salimah_Valiani/1117 As I’ve noted earlier, its pretty hard to square the “shortage of Canadian workers” story from employers with the avaialable data on (flat) wage growth. There are clearly some shortages of specific skills (eg […]

Canadian growth and productivity

April 12, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

Two Canadian macro articles diverted me from my best laid plans today. Side by side, the two make for some interesting observations on the state of the Canadian economy, as well as some fodder for thinking about what drives investment. The first, a Statscan piece by Phillip Cross, is a demand-led investment story, with most attention on the resource sector, […]

On the price elasticity of gasoline

April 12, 2007 Marc Lee 3 comments

Statistics Canada’s economic review of 2006 contains an interesting passage about consumer responses to higher gas prices. One would expect that as gas prices rise, drivers would consume somewhat less gas in the short run (gas demand is inelastic, so the reduction may be small), and to change their behaviour over the long-run by purchasing more fuel efficient vehicles. This […]

Supply-side economics and its refusal to die

April 12, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

Supply-side economics (and its trickle-down theory) is a zombie, intellectually dead but continuing to roam the halls of the public debate.Â Witness the 2001 BC elections and the mantra “tax cuts pay for themselves”, a free-lunch argument that we can have tax cuts and not have to pay a price in terms of cutting social programs (note: as of 2007, […]

Productivity and Pay

April 12, 2007 Andrew Jackson 7 comments

http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1122&Itemid=77 This is a very nice piece from Dean Baker of the CEPR on the delinking of real worker pay from labour productivity growth in the US. I’ve argued for years, with much of the left, that average worker pay has lagged productivity growth mainly because of the increased bargaining power of capital vis a vis labour due to “globalization”, […]

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