Gabriella Moldonado looked like someone who was thoroughly whipped by life. This past October I was standing on the front stoop of her sagging home in Laredo, Texas, interviewing the middle-aged, portly woman for a television documentary about Mexico’s drug cartel wars. Laredo is a city of 230,000 that lies on the Rio Grande river just across from Mexico. It […]
Read moreSometimes the crudest forms of Marxist analysis of the relationship between class and politics make the most sense. Read this  scorching commentary by Simon Johnson – the former IMF Chief Economist turned ubercritic of the power of the big banks - on the appointment of a senior Wall Street figure, Bill Daley from Morgan Stanley, as President Obama’s new chief […]
Read moreLast weekend, I pointed out that Neil Reynolds had misleadingly presented figures on capital-gains realizations as being capital-gains tax revenues. Tuesday’s Report on Business included the following item: Correction – January 4, 2011 U.S. capital gains tax realizations fell to 3 per cent of gross domestic product in 1987, when the rate was hiked. Incorrect information appeared in a Dec. […]
Read moreOverall, there was little change in overall labour market conditions in December. The national unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.6% as a modest total of 22,000 new jobs were created. While the total number of persons working has risen above pre recession levels, the national employment rate (the proportion of the working age population with jobs) is still well below […]
Read moreAndrew Sharpe has published an interesting new study on the marked slowdown in Canadian labour productivity growth from the early 200s. He decomposes the decline in productivity growth into changes at the detailed industry level, and finds that the majority (53%) of the slowdown in productivity growth between 1997-2000 and 2000-2007Â is attributable to changes in manufacturing, with the lion’s […]
Read moreThe New York Times recently reported that the American Economics Association (AEA) will be studying a proposal to adopt a code of ethical standards during its upcoming meetings, set to take place in a few days in Denver. This code of ethical standards could notably address situations where there could be a possible conflict of interest, such as when economists […]
Read moreWorthwhile Canadian Initiative has presented a list of its most viewed posts from 2010. The top post is so worthwhile that it warrants further promotion. The President of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve had warned that unduly low interest rates would cause deflation. Of course, anyone with a handle on basic macroeconomics knows that the risk of leaving interest rates too […]
Read moreCanada’s recovery from the 2008-09 recession ground to a painful halt during the second half of 2010. The economy created no net new jobs from the summer onward, economic growth slowed to a crawl, and the nation’s current account deficit reached a record size. And all of that was while federal-provincial stimulus efforts (said to provide a boost equivalent to […]
Read moreNeil Reynolds’ latest Globe column promotes the myth of costless tax cuts by replicating Kurt Hauser’s month-old Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Hauser’s Law†is the notion that American federal tax revenues have consistently been about 19% of GDP since World War II despite significant changes in statutory tax rates. The implication is that higher tax rates simply prompt more tax […]
Read moreAn interesting intervention in the UK debate over the future of social democracy.
Read moreThe Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) got some uncritical media attention with their “study” of tax increases for 2011. Their release states that: “Increases in EI and CPP payroll tax thresholds mean that anyone earning more than $44,200 will pay an additional $76, while employers pay an additional $110 in 2011 payroll taxes. Increases in payroll taxes are primarily attributable to […]
Read moreThe December 2010 issue of the quarterly Economic Climate for Bargaining publication that I produce is now on CUPE’s website in both English and French. In each issue I summarize developments and trends for the economy, labour markets, inflation and wages, and also include short pieces of 1-2 pages on related topical issues. In this issue, the focus is very much on pre-budget […]
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 moreJeffrey Simpson seems to favour the sensible option of CPP expansion, but also wants to raise the CPP retirement age. “Curiously, there seems to be an aversion among governments to easing future retirement costs by raising the age of retirement. Australia, France and the United States have already done so, lifting the age for future receipt of public pensions. Other […]
Read moreFlaherty’s proposed new pension vehicle bears a remarkably close resemblance to that put forward by Frank Swedlove of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association to the IRPP pensions conference. (I guess he wins the prize for most influential presentation. I put the case for CPP expansion, while Bill Robson argued for not doing very much at all.) I gather […]
Read moreHere are the CLC’s Q and As re proposed Pooled Registered Pension Plans. Basically they are like group RRSPs, but sponsored by a financial institution with a fiduciary responsibility as opposed to an employer. They may be somewhat lower cost than individual RRSPs, as with current group RRSPs. However, there will be a lot of such plans, with different investment […]
Read moreDoing Business enjoys the highest circulation of any World Bank publication. It ranks countries based on the favourability of their regulations to business. It is like the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom and the Cato/Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Report, but supported by the World Bank’s credibility and clout. (Notwithstanding corporate Canada’s incessant complaints about regulation, Canada […]
Read moreYesterday’s Globe and Mail features an article on the resignation of Paul Bates as Dean of McMaster’s business school. I believe the article is instructive in terms of understanding what can happen when private-sector actors are put in senior administrative roles at Canadian univerities According to the article, McMaster hired Mr. Bates in 2004. Mr. Bates had no university degree, yet […]
Read moreEarlier this month, I attended a very interesting conference on the taxation of multinational corporations. It included a case study of how SABMiller avoids paying tax in Africa. While many of the points presented are undoubtedly familiar to this blog’s readers, the conference put it all together with a clarity that I attempt to reproduce below. The Trouble with Transfer […]
Read moreConversation fragment overheard the other day: “This deficit thing. It worries me. My grandchildren you know?” To which his interlocutor replies: “Yes, it worries me too. We just can’t keep this up.” And so it goes. The grandchildren are trotted out. We shudder in collective guilt, thinking about the financial hardship that our selfishness imposes on the progeny of our […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on how to respond to record household debt, I wrote a longer piece for a wider audience at The Mark. Thanks for the great comments on the post!
Read moreI’ve long thought that we should lower the voting age to 16, so thanks to Mike deJong for raising it in the BC Liberal leadership campaign. I speak from some experience, as I voted shortly after I turned 17 in the Ontario provincial election. I was a frosh in residence at Western and no one called me on it so […]
Read moreI’m the main researcher on a three-year SSHRC-funded research project looking at homelessness and affordable housing in the Northwest Territories (NWT). Frances Abele (Carleton University) is Principal Investigator on the project, and Arlene Haché (Yellowknife Women’s Society) is Co-Investigator. The project falls under the larger umbrella of the Social Economy Research Network of Northern Canada. Though several larger papers will come out […]
Read moreThe International Labour Organization has just released its second Global Wage Report, “Wage Policies in Times of Crisis.†The International Trade Union Confederation’s press release follows: 15 December 2010 – The ITUC has welcomed the second Global Wage Report from the International Labour Organization (ILO). “Today’s report reinforces what unions around the world have been saying about the economic crisis […]
Read moreIt’s a funny old economy we live in. The release of today’s national balance sheet accounts has aroused great concern about the rise of the ratio of household debt to personal disposable income to a new record of 148%. Mark Carney and our banks want – quite rightly – to discourage further borrowing to prevent a disaster for highly leveraged […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on Happiness and Inequality, here is a scattergram on the relationship between income inequality (measured by the ratio of the top to bottom quintile of after tax family income) and happiness (satisfied and very satisfied with life.) Quite a tight fit. Â
Read moreLike most dailies, the Globe and Mail produces a honking big weekly supplement on cars; theirs is called Globe Drive, and comes out every Friday. One feature of the section is a mildly amusing column called “My Wheels,” each edition of which features some minor Canadian celebrity discussing their personal choice of vehicle. I recently pitched an idea to the […]
Read moreThe tripartite International Labour Organization (ILO) has released it’s flagship 2010 World of Work Report. It offers a useful partial counterpoint to the economic analysis of other international organizations such as the IMF and the OECD. The ILO argues that the employment rate in advanced countries will not return to pre crisis levels until well after 2015, and perhaps not […]
Read moreShortly before I left Canada, Canadian Business magazine contacted me for a story on productivity. It highlighted a presentation by Industry Canada economist Annette Ryan. I was struck by slide 40 (41 of 44 in the PDF): In an endogenous sunk cost model, opening free trade and intensifying competition leads to a divergence in innovation paths. Firms in the less […]
Read moreOver at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Stephen Gordon argues that capitalists are not rich. Of course, wealth is more or less synonymous with owning things that can be broadly defined as capital. Stephen’s argument is focused on income: “If capital income is concentrated among high earners, then it could still be argued that increasing labour’s share of income will reduce inequality.†[…]
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