The comment pages of Saskatchewan’s newspapers have been abuzz with debate about potash royalties since my latest op-ed on the subject appeared in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix a couple of weeks ago. Two days later, political columnist Murray Mandryk made the case that the province should demand higher royalties rather than just accepting a few more jobs and charitable donations from the Potash […]
Read moreThis article first appeared in the Globe and Mail’s online feature Economy Lab on Friday. My thanks to all the commentators on this page for the great discussion of the topic. This week, the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship rightly noted that immigrants are Canada’s ticket to economic growth in the coming years. The untold story is this: Canada’s growing […]
Read moreThis blog has been posted on behalf of Bruce Campbell, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The first version of this piece originally appeared in the blogosphere at the Huffington Post The Irish people go to the polls on February 25. The governing Fianna Fail party — that created the fallen Celtic Tiger economic model and is […]
Read moreToday’s National Post gave front page coverage to a “study” from the Frontier Centre claiming that wages of public servants have far outstripped those of private sector workers over the past decade. “Wage increases doled out to federal and provincial public servants have nearly doubled those given to private-sector employees in the past decade, according to a new report that […]
Read moreI was taken a bit aback by Kevin Carmichael’s piece on Obama’s budget plans in today’s ROB. In what is more a news than an opinion piece on concerns regarding fiscal sustainability in the US , he baldly states without attribution that “Research and history suggests that a debt-to-GDP ratio of 60 per cent or higher is a prelude for […]
Read moreAdvocates of corporate tax cuts like comparing Canada to an unweighted average of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development members. Since the OECD keeps admitting more microscopic economies with very low corporate tax rates, this average keeps falling regardless of whether any country actually lowers its rate. Last year’s admission of Estonia, Israel and Slovenia dragged the OECD average just […]
Read moreA couple of weeks back I summarized five economic reasons to say no to further corporate tax cuts right now. A print edition of the piece caught the eye of Finance Canada, which fired off a chastening letter on February 10th saying:
Read moreFor the wine lovers among us progressive economists, which definitely includes me, this NBER paper offers up a, well, sobering argument. “We examine the value of terroir, which refers to the special characteristics of a place that impart unique qualities to the wine produced. We do this by conducting a hedonic analysis of vineyard sales in the Willamette Valley of […]
Read moreThe CFIB hav a new study out attacking minimum wages Their estimate of job losses from a 10% increase in minimum wages is based on elasticities from studies which found significant negative impacts on employment and discounts the many studies which have found very small impacts. The OECD – which is more impartial – has found the effect of minimum […]
Read moreThe Canadian Press summary of the Prime Minister’s comments raised my eyebrows, but it was not a direct quote. So, I checked the Parliament of Canada website: Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): There is not a single business organization, not a single credible voice in this country, that supports the tax hikes proposed by the Liberal Party. It […]
Read moreThis blog has long been critiquing Saskatchewan’s inadequate potash royalties. But every time I check the numbers, I am again shocked by how low they have fallen. In 2010, the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan paid just a nickel in provincial royalties for every dollar of gross margin it made on potash. I have the following op-ed in today’s Saskatoon StarPhoenix: […]
Read moreFor the past few weeks, a business leader could scarcely pick up a magazine without bumping into that other inconvenient truth of our era: rising inequality. It’s been the topic of discussion everywhere from the Economist, to The Atlantic, to the World Economic Forum. Today CTV’s Business News Network (BNN) launched a three-part series looking at the gap between the […]
Read moreIt has been fascinating to watch the growing public reaction to the full-court press from Canada’s Big Pipe companies (aka, the telcos and cablecos) for usage-based billing (internet metering). The CRTC has played a corporatist role that has largely been compliant with the demands of industry. Even in the midst of the turning political tide, the CRTC seems more interested […]
Read moreOne concern is that this deal may undermine our ability to regulate financial markets. If the Canadian exchanges become majority owned in the UK, and if the Canada – EU deal is ratified with a Chapter 11 like investment clause, then we leave ourselves open to sanctions if and when we impose regulations which result in a loss of expected […]
Read moreThe Report of the Task Force on Financial Literacy is all that one would have expected from one co chaired by the CEO of Sun Life Financial and the Chairman of BMO Nesbitt Burns. There is hardly a whisper of criticism of financial institutions and the myriad fees, charges and interest rates they extract from ordinary Canadians. You will not […]
Read moreStatscan have released their regular (about every 5 years) statistical compilation, Women in Canada. In a box in the earnings section – around Table 20- one will find a short summary of a paper by Michael Baker and Statscan employee Marie Drolet from the December, 2010 issue of Canadian Public Policy. Entitled “The Gender Wage Gap Revisited” it states that: […]
Read moreToronto’s new mayor Rob Ford and his brother/advisor Doug just announced they are planning to contract-out garbage collection for half of the City of Toronto as soon as possible as the first step to outsourcing everything we can by next year. According to Doug Ford, this will save the city millions and millions of dollars and ensure that they never […]
Read moreIt is, according to a major story by Barrie McKenna in today’s ROB. The story is full of telling anecdotes which ring more or less true. But I doubt that higher oil prices are, on net, a plus for the total Canadian economy in terms of either GDP or employment. True, high and rising oil prices will (often with a […]
Read moreWhy yes of course we are, but perhaps not quite so urban as we think. It is often asserted that most Canadians now live in big cities or their suburbs. But this is a bit misleading, leaving the impression that almost all of us live in Greater Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Statscan has decided to end the old rural/urban dichotomy […]
Read moreThe main objection to my argument about the treasury transfer effect is that American companies do not actually repatriate their Canadian profits and pay US corporate tax on them. As The Globe reported: Jack Mintz, director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, said the unique tax status of U.S. companies is a moot point because […]
Read more(Ben and Nick Rowe correctly pointed out that I goofed in the calculations in the earlier version of this post, which I have deleted and replaced.) How much money do I need for a secure retirement? That is the question many baby boomers are asking themselves. The short answer is, a lot, at least so long as we have to […]
Read moreSaskatchewan’s NDP opposition recently called for higher potash royalties, a position long advocated by this blog. Not surprisingly, the Saskatchewan Party government and the potash companies have objected. The argument from Premier Brad Wall and PotashCorp CEO Bill Doyle seems to be that mine expansions are occurring in Saskatchewan only because of royalty concessions granted by the previous NDP government. […]
Read moreOver at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative (WCI), Stephen Gordon reasonably argues that economic models can be useful for policy analysis even if they lack the predictive power needed for forecasting. He writes: A well-designed model will be able to reproduce the main features of interest of the real world. More importantly, it will also be able to reproduce the main features […]
Read moreDavid Dodge is as close to an authoritative mainstream voice as we have on economic issues (not that that means he is always right, but he sure counts in the mainstream media.) Here is what David Dodge had to say on postponing corporate income tax cuts in a lecture at Queen’s a year ago. “In addition the final scheduled cut […]
Read moreStatscan economist Philip Cross weighs in on how trivial is the impact of cuts in the overall scheme of things, as reported in a fine story by Heather Scoffield of CP. I agree, but fear his career will be in serious jeopardy. Or perhaps he is on the eve of joining Munir in retirement. Minister Clement will not like this […]
Read moreA few months ago, I tore a strip off Barrie McKenna’s column on internal trade. But today I write to praise his column on corporate taxes: U.S.-based companies . . . are taxed by the Internal Revenue Service on their global income. So any profits they don’t reinvest and try to repatriate are hit with the higher U.S. rate, not […]
Read moreToday, the Global Development and Environment Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies released the following statement signed by more than 250 economists, including a couple of Progressive Economics Forum members: Dear Secretary Clinton, Secretary Geithner, and Ambassador Kirk: We, the undersigned economists, write to alert you to important new developments in the economics literature pertaining to prudential financial regulations, […]
Read moreA 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 moreI made a short presentation on the disturbing rise of temporary work last week. It seems the cutting edge of the new normal is to be found in our schools, colleges and universities. As most of us would know or strongly suspect, paid work has become more casualized or precarious over time as the standard employment relationship of full time, permanent […]
Read moreThe fiscal implications of corporate income tax (CIT) cuts are a key issue in the current debate. Federal cabinet ministers and Neil Reynolds have boldly asserted that lower CIT rates will increase CIT revenues. As Andrew and I have pointed out, this claim is implausible and not supported by the government’s own Department of Finance. The following table provides a closer […]
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