An hilarious aspect of various inter-provincial “free trade†deals is how proponents struggle to identify the barriers they hope to remove. While there are essentially no “trade barriers†between provinces, concerns about labour mobility have a whiff of substance. This morning, the C. D. Howe Institute released a paper by Robert Knox on “Barriers to Labour Mobility in Canada.†The […]
Read moreI just had a telling experience with the CBC in Vancouver. Their show “On the Coast†was doing a piece on the discriminatory experience of a young women who applied for a job at Joey Restaurants. She went through their training period (which consisted largely of tips about how to dress and apply makeup), but at the end of the […]
Read moreThe Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC) – the leading national voice of civil society international development and anti poverty organizations – appear to have lost the two-thirds of their funding which came from CIDA. This is yet another example of the Harper government refusing to fund independent research and advocacy. Over the last while, we have seen the effective […]
Read moreThanks to Marc Lavoie and Mario Seccareccia, from the University of Ottawa, who oversaw and judged our essay contest for 2010. And also thanks to the entrants to this year’s competition, as Marc and Mario reported a record number of entries and a very high quality of writing. Here are the winners: Undergraduate Winner ($500 Prize): Rob Konkel, University of […]
Read moreI am highly recommending Nancy Folbre’s new book, Greed, Lust & Gender: A History of Economic Ideas. It has a slightly racy title (at least for an economics book) and my initial reaction was that the ‘lust’ focus was a bit forced and seemed to be pandering to the need to sell. Greed and gender are associated easily with economic […]
Read moreFurther to my recent post on the last Monetary Policy Report http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2010/05/11/the-bank-of-canada-and-the-recovery/ I cannot claim to be surprised that the the Bank of Canada has decided to begin to raise interest rates, albeit by an initial quarter point from extraordinarily low levels. They are also returning to normal overnight money market operations which will tighten credit to a degree. I […]
Read moreThis morning, the Bank of Canada raised its interest-rate target from 0.25% to 0.5%. Yesterday’s robust GDP numbers had the overwhelming majority of economic pundits arguing that it should and would do so. But just one week ago, when the stock market was plummeting due to the Euro crisis, most commentators and headlines suggested that the Bank of Canada might […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on the IRPP pensions conference http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2010/05/12/still-more-on-the-pensions-debate/#comments an excellent (albeit highly complex) power point presentation by Michael Wolfson has recently been posted. It can be found in two parts on the IRPP web site at http://www.irpp.org/indexe.htm Wolfson, who now teaches at the University of Ottawa, recently retired from the position of Assistant Chief Statistician at Statistics […]
Read moreI’ve posted below an introduction and link to a short piece I wrote a while back for the Green Economy Network on possible job creation from the development of transit. A student will be doing some work in this area at the CLC this Summer and we would welcome any input or leads on the topic. Anyone interested in this […]
Read moreOver at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Stephen Gordon has posted Michael Veall’s data, updating his past work on the rising income share of top income recipients (expressed as a share of market income declared by adults for tax purposes, and excluding capital gains.) Veall presented his main findings at the CEA meetings. The data were extracted by Statscan from tax data. […]
Read moreThis morning, Statistics Canada reported a robust economic expansion in March and hence in the first quarter of 2010. Although February’s growth was revised down to 0.2%, strong growth of 0.6% in both January and March propelled the quarterly total to 1.5%. That figure corresponds to an annual growth rate of 6.1%, more than double the 3.0% growth reported south […]
Read moreI recently wrote a paper on the recession’s impact on homelessness, looking at Toronto as a case study. I presented it on Friday at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association (May 28-30, Quebec City). The paper’s title is “Calm Before the Storm,” as I believe that, based on the outcome of the last major recession in the early […]
Read moreFor years we have been asking Stephen Gordon to provide the evidence for lower corporate taxes. Like Stephen I like the Nordic model and take away from it that tax mix matters, so funding a large public sector may require more than taxes on “people we do not know†(ie corporations and the rich), so consumption taxes need to part […]
Read moreA lucid analysis from Andrew Watt, chief economist with the European Trade Union Institute “Angela Merkel may have got just about everything else wrong, but she was right to tell the German parliament that urgent action is needed to save the euro area, otherwise the future of Europe is at stake. Europe’s reaction to the sovereign debt crisis has been […]
Read moreMy good friend and CAW brother Paul Pugh (President of CAW Local 1075 in Thunder Bay) has brought to my attention recent economic and political developments in Uruguay, the little nation of 4 million people squashed between Argentina and Brazil. Paul has family connections to Uruguay and follows developments there closely. While not as well-covered in the media as developments […]
Read moreThis morning, Statistics Canada reported that the annual inflation rate rose to 1.8% in April. Inflation and Wages While inflation remains low, it is eating up almost all of the modest wage increases that workers have eked out over the past year. The Labour Force Survey indicates that the average hourly wage rose by 2.0% between April 2009 and April […]
Read moreProgressive economists everywhere should say a thank you this week to Wynne Godley, who passed away May 13. He started out his career as an economist working for the U.K. Treasury, then got to know Nicholas Kaldor and moved over to Cambridge to help establish the Department of Applied Economics there (from which he retied in 1993). His more recent work […]
Read moreHi all, Last time I was in Quebec City, I got tear gassed by my government during the 2001 Summit of the Americas. I’m sure next week’s trip for the CEA conference will be much better than that. In fact, we have an amazing line up of panels, including a new Galbraith lecture from this year’s winner, John Loxley. Thanks […]
Read moreStatistics Canada reports that, after February’s pause, Employment Insurance (EI) resumed its contraction in March. Specifically, 24,200 fewer Canadians received regular EI benefits. The key question is whether these unemployed workers found jobs or simply ran out of benefits. The Labour Force Survey indicated that employment rose by 17,900 in March. Therefore, it seems unlikely that everyone leaving EI found […]
Read moreErin has blogged before on variable EI coverage of the unemployed at the city level http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/09/28/employment-insurance-benefits-by-city/ and I have been aware for some time that coverage is relatively low in the giant Toronto CMA. Nonetheless, I was taken aback to find out that, in the most recent month for which we have EI and Labour Force Survey data (February, 2010), […]
Read moreLast Friday I had the honour of sharing the podium (and a good supper afterward) with Steve Keen, the awesome Australian economist who was recently named the winner of the “Revere Award” for most accurately forewarning of the global financial crisis. In fact, that award was announced the same day we spoke together to the Politics in the Pub speaker’s […]
Read moreA recent article in The New York Times illustrates this point with the story of an unemployed administrative assistant in her 50s, who has not been able to find a job for over two years after being laid off. As the journalist explains, her difficulties are likely not the result of age discrimination, the weak economy in her town, or […]
Read moreI’m afraid I can’t find the report on the IMF website but this news story indicates IMF support for the new Australian tax on windfall mining profits. The obvious thought, if it’s good there, why not here? The Advertiser (Australia) May 17, 2010 Monday IMF backs super tax on nation’s big miners BYLINE: BEN BUTLER THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund has […]
Read moreThere have been clouds and clouds of smoke generated about the impact of Ontario’s impending introduction of its Harmonized Sales Tax.  Fortunately there is finally now some substance out there in terms of a detailed analysis conducted by Statistics Canada that was recently released by the Ontario NDP. And what is shows is quite surprising. Much of the blame for all the […]
Read moreThe IMF staff documents relating to the “bail out” of Greece make for scary reading. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2010/cr10110.pdf The scale of the economic contraction being imposed through this “solution” is staggering. On top of 2% contraction of real GDP in 2009, there will be a decline of 9% over the next several years, with 6.6% of that coming in 2010 and 2011. […]
Read moreLast week I attended what turned out to be an excellent pensions conference organized by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). It was a behind closed doors, Chatham House rules event which stops me from blogging too freely, but several of the presentations have now been posted to the IRPP web site. The audience was mainly policy wonks, […]
Read moreThe Bank of Canada’s most recent Monetary Policy Report  http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/mpr/pdf/2010/mpr220410.pdf forecasts quite a strong short-term recovery. However, it is projected that growth will begin to taper off from the middle of this year and slow to just a 2% annual growth rate by mid 2011. The recovery is being driven by government stimulus spending – which remains significant through 2010 […]
Read moreThis morning, Statistics Canada reported that employment shot up by an incredible 108,700 in April. Although employment has been recovering for almost a year, it had lagged behind the rebound in output. But today’s job numbers show a 0.6% rise in monthly employment, double the monthly GDP growth reported last week. Total hours worked increased by 1.1% in April, confirming […]
Read moreVale, the company against which my union has been on strike since July 2009, released its first-quarter earnings this evening. The release deflates Vale’s rationale for demanding labour concessions and confirms that the strike is hurting its bottom line. The company wants to eliminate defined-benefit pensions for new employees and drastically reduce the bonus paid to workers when nickel prices […]
Read moreThe National Institute on Retirement Security in the U.S. produces some really excellent reports which should be more widely read, and not just on pensions or retirement income. Last week they published a good report, Out of Balance?  comparing public and private sector compensation over the past 20 years, written by two professors at the University of Wisconsin. This report […]
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