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 […]
Read moreSupply-side economics (and its trickle-down theory) is a zombie, intellectually dead but continuing to roam the halls of the public debate. 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, […]
Read morehttp://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”, […]
Read moreBill C-30 – the Clean Air Act – is a strange beast – a government bill which was fundamentally re-written by the three opposition parties to finally move Canada towards a real national action plan to prevent catastrophic climate change.The media are so focused on the politics of climate change that little attention seems to have been paid to the […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot takes us behind the curtain of the IPCC report-making process, and who is really pressuring whom to censor what: The Real Climate Censorship Posted April 10, 2007 It’s happening, it’s systematic, and it is precisely the opposite story to the one the papers are telling. By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 10th April 2007. The drafting of […]
Read moreOver at Economist’s View, Mark Thoma got a snowball rolling (trickling?) downhill by citing a revisionist article by Bruce Bartlett on the history and legacy of supply-side economics. He then put forward a lengthy and useful theoretical response, after which all kinds of interesting commentary followed. I have taken this updated post for a summary, which includes the original oped […]
Read moreThis missive below from the Conrad Black trial must be really embarrassing for Black. Reading about this horrible trip and his feelings of inadequacy next to young honeymooners, I feel kind of sorry for the guy … OK, it’s gone now. What is amazing about the doomed flight is that Conrad could have had it all – and kept the […]
Read moreOver at MaxSpeak, the state of housing and whether or not it is a bubble is reviewed: THE GREAT HOUSING BUBBLE FLAP Probably most who read this blog accept that there was a bubble in the US housing market, and that it has come to an end. Some regulars here, notably the notable Dean Baker, were early out the door […]
Read moreA report from the front lines of the battle over early learning and child care in the United Kingdom, which appears to be in a similar space as Canada – supported by academic and policy elites, but with too little action on the political side to overcome the great inertia of the existing patchwork system. Taking great care We should […]
Read moreTwo recent reports from the Globe below point to the failures of our regulatory system. The first is on bisphenol A, an endocrine disrupter, and the second on trans fats. The challenge is a regulatory approach that insists on bullet-proof evidence of harm – which can take decades to accumulate – before action is taken to remove a chemical from […]
Read moreToday’s Financial Post reports that Ontario’s Premier “is exploring the possibility of joining the B.C.-Alberta free trade initiative.†Specifically, it quotes him as saying, “what I have done is talked to [B.C. Premier] Gord Campbell and [former Alberta premier] Ralph Klein, in the past, and said, you guys seem to have done something which sounds good. I’m not sure the […]
Read moreNeil Reynolds has discovered that a fraction can be increased by reducing its denominator. Because labour productivity equals output divided by employment, he claims that “In manufacturing, you measure success by the number of jobs you eliminate.” By definition, a given volume of manufacturing output produced by fewer workers implies higher manufacturing productivity. However, it does not follow that lost […]
Read moreAs I mentioned below, I am home in Saskatchewan this week. As a result, I have seen the latest “Parliamentary Update†from my former Member of Parliament (MP), Ralph Goodale. It is, of course, normal that MPs of all stripes deploy these publicly funded “householders†to present themselves and their activities in a positive light. When the Liberals were in […]
Read moreOn March 30, I attended the federal government’s conference on “Internal Trade: Opportunities and Challenges,†which was hosted by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and by Industry Canada. Other attendees included academics, federal and provincial civil servants, and representatives of business and professional organizations. The academic and policy people all agreed that the material costs of alleged inter-provincial barriers […]
Read moreThe New York Times reports on the inequities generated by global warming below. The April edition of The Atlantic also featured a story on the same theme, but it was really poorly done. While the article makes a few interesting observations of what might happen in different parts of the world, Gregg Easterbrook, from Brookings, was more inclined to treat […]
Read moreLance Freeman of Columbia University argues against congestion pricing: The Equity Considerations of Congestion Pricing Getting stuck in traffic is fast becoming one of those necessary evils that everyone complains about but seldom does anything about it. Or at least anything that seems terribly effective. Neither additional road building nor public transit seemed to have had a major impact on […]
Read moreLast week, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund published a legal analysis on the environment and TILMA. Below is an excerpt from the press release, and the full document is here. This is an important analysis as BC’s point man on the file, Colin Hansen, has been claiming that the environment has been set aside as a “legitimate objective”. April Fools’ […]
Read moreOver at Wired, Leander Kahney comments on this week’s deal between Apple and EMI to sell EMI’s catalogue free of digital rights management (DRM): How Steve Jobs Calls the Tunes Steve Jobs’ new partnership with EMI to sell music without copy protection is a lesson in how to wield power in the digital age. Carefully and strategically, Jobs set up […]
Read moreThe authors of this paper address the relationship between (overly rigid) intellectual property laws, in copyright and patents, and externalities (spillovers), with a rethink of the assumptions driving the economics. Spillovers MARK A. LEMLEY Stanford Law School BRETT M. FRISCHMANN Loyola University of Chicago – Law School Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 321 Columbia Law Review, Vol. […]
Read moreThis week, I am back home in Saskatchewan, where debate on TILMA is really heating up. (My location and time zone also explain why Andrew filled in for me on today’s Labour Force Survey.) Brad Wall leads the Saskatchewan Party (the renamed Conservatives) and hence the Official Opposition. While some TILMA proponents have withdrawn from the deeply flawed Conference Board […]
Read moreToday’s job numbers are good news in that they strongly suggest the economy is growing rather than slowing. Employment is up by a strong 55,000 jobs, the national unemployment rate remains at a relatively low 6.1%, and real wages are modestly rising. The overall jobs picture is a bit stronger than expected, and women are doing particularly well. (A record […]
Read moreROB columnist Eric Reguly is off to Europe. I’ve always enjoyed his rather iconoclastic business commentary, and will miss it (far too rare in the Globe.) Today’s parting shot identifies the culture of corporate Canada rather than public policy as the source of our poor performance in terms of global business leadership. What ails Canada: My parting shot It is […]
Read moreAn unstated, and almost certainly correct, assumption underlying the speculation about a spring campaign is that the Harper government’s defeat on a confidence vote would result in an election. However, as Andrew Coyne correctly points out, the Governor General could instead call upon someone other than Harper to form a government able to command the House’s confidence. Harper would want […]
Read more This paper from Beaudry and Green seems highly relevant to the currently hot issue of community economic impacts from manufacturing job losses. Manufacturing jobs generally pay above average wages, and recent research suggests displaced industrial workers experience average wage losses in the range of 25%. http://papers.nber.org/papers/W13006  NBER Working Paper No. 13006 Issued in April 2007 NBER Program(s):   LS Does […]
Read moreThomas Palley credibly suggests that the Bush White House has been driving up oil prices by expanding this reserve, but then lowering them during American elections by depleting the reserve. I have also heard suggestions that the Clinton White House depleted the reserve at election time, but am not sure whether it expanded the reserve outside of elections. Manipulating the Reserve by Thomas […]
Read moreThe presentations from the Ottawa Economics Association’s 2007 Policy Conference are now available online. They include a fascinating exposition on China’s manufacturing sector, a business perspective on Canadian manufacturing, Buzz Hargrove on the Canadian economy, and the Fraser Institute’s take on global warming.
Read moreThere has not been nearly enough Canadian discussion of this hot issue, especially given the spate of activity in Canada. Here’s info from a recent critical UK report (with thanks to Joel Harden). On 26 March the UK-based Work Foundation released a report on the social impact of private equity investment in the UK: “Inside the dark box: shedding light […]
Read morePatrick Grady, a former senior Finance official and leading mainstream economist, has weighed in on the Conference Board’s estimate of TILMA’s economic benefits. He cites the paper that Marc and I wrote and reiterates the points first made on this blog. He also notes that the Conference Board’s own forecast of BC’s economic-growth rate does not seem to reflect its […]
Read moreAir travel is a beast for the climate change file, one that is going to be difficult to tackle as we move ahead. For consumers, it is deeply entrenched as a means of getting around the globe, and may be particularly hard to reduce because it would require strong international collaboration. In Monbiot’s book Heat, he argues we need to […]
Read moreThe “uh oh” file is growing, as the next IPCC report comes out this Friday. In it are more graphic descriptions about what warming could mean for the planet and by region. Scary stuff that will hopefully take our governments to the next level beyond recognition and half-measures to something more meaningful. Below are some previews from the Toronto Star […]
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