I’ve pasted in below my contribution to the latest issue of Canada Watch, edited by my old friend Danny Drache of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto. It’s part of a special issue on what Deep Integration of North America could look like with George W. Bush out of the way. Here’s the link to […]
Read moreMost environmentalists would probably say no. But I’m going to make the opposite case here. The thing we need to remember about economic growth is that over long periods of time the products we consume and the processes by which we produce them change dramatically. As my old prof Dick Lipsey pointed out repeatedly, we have a higher standard of […]
Read moreIt is my great pleasure to announce the winners of the first John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics: Mel Watkins and Kari Polanyi Levitt will share the Prize. The award was largely on the basis of their pioneering work around foreign (US) investment and ownership and multinational corporations back in the 1960s and 1970s. Both Kari and Mel will be […]
Read moreOn the anniversary of TILMA coming into force, nine national business associations and the professional association representing non-chartered accountants have demanded “bold action” on inter-provincial trade. The press release alleges that “the emergence of new trade barriers threatens to further balkanize the Canadian economy” without naming a single “new trade barrier”. It repeats the unfounded claim that “it is often […]
Read moreLast week I attended a very useful workshop on climate change and green jobs bringing together about 25 people from labour and environmental ngos, in a generally successful attempt to find common ground around climate change policies. I think there was real momentum around the centrality of “green job” creation to moving the climate change agenda forward. There was less […]
Read moreAs Joe Kuchta points out, Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix (SP) newspaper has essentially reversed its position on TILMA without any acknowledgement that its previous position was mistaken. The other SP, the province’s governing Saskatchewan Party, did the same thing. At least the StarPhoenix printed the following op-ed from Joe: SP’s TILMA stance hypocritical Joe Kuchta Special to The StarPhoenix Thursday, March 27, […]
Read more A good one from Eric Beauchesne on the Canwest wire. Some highlights: Canada’s wealthy benefit most from tax cuts, OECD finds The tax burden on wages has eased in most of the world’s industrial countries this decade, including here, but Canada is among a minority where most of the relief has gone to high-income earners and the least to lower-income […]
Read moreIn my experience, flights are often delayed in Pearson airport. I always wonder whether there is some particular problem with the management of Pearson or whether delays just tend to happen there because air travel is somehow prone to delay and so many flights go through Pearson. A recent Canadian Press story seems to support the first possibility.
Read moreI was in Washington last week for meetings of economists from central trade union bodies, mainly from the OECD countries. While the main purpose of the meetings was to draft the annual union statement to the upcoming G-8 summit in Japan, we had a full day of meetings with researchers and senior officials from the International Monetary Fund, and also […]
Read moreThe United Steelworkers are currently trying to organize Dofasco. I encourage progressives to vote “yes” in The Hamilton Spectator’s online poll. UPDATE (March 24): The Dofasco poll no longer seems to be on The Spectator’s website.
Read moreAh, the confluence of the events! The tabling of a “prudent†federal budget for uncertain times, followed a week later by news of slowing economic growth. Of course, rumors of the economy’s imminent decline may be greatly exaggerated, given January’s jobs report and trade data. But let’s carry forth with the economic accounts data. Earlier, Erin and Toby drew […]
Read moreNo this isn’t the Economics National Enquirer. I mean shocking. Really shocking. Hasn’t anyone else out there noticed what’s happened to Canada’s net FDI position, in the wake of the mega-massive takeovers of Canadian resource companies that have occurred as a result of the global commodity price boom? Resource companies with more money than they know what to do with […]
Read moreEven Jim Flaherty’s “We Don’t Pick Winners†Conservatives were under pressure in this budget to do something for the auto industry. The fact that at least a dozen swing ridings in southwestern Ontario could determine the outcome of the next election might have something to do with their sensitivity to the continuing industrial destruction being wrought in what is still […]
Read moreIn Vancouver, June 6-8, the Progressive Economics Forum will be holding five panels at the annual meetings of the Canadian Economics Association. In addition we will be awarding the new John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics for the first time (more to come on this). We would like to thank the CEA, who last year provided us a grant to […]
Read moreA new release from Statistics Canada on infrastructure finds that: In the public sector, infrastructure is primarily concentrated in schools, hospitals, roads and water mains. In 2002, about one-third (34%) of assets were devoted to transportation in the public sector, unchanged from 1970. About 26% were devoted to recreation, culture and education, 13% to health and social protection and 11% […]
Read moreThere is good news today, but ample reason for caution looking ahead Canada’s job market continues to surprise. Despite a strong drop in economic growth in late 2007 and recognition this week from the Bank of Canada that a US downturn will spill over into Canada, employment rose by 43,000 last month and the unemployment rate held steady at 5.8%. […]
Read more The CLC today released – on the eve of International Women’s Day – a major report on women and economic equality.  I’ll be presenting it at the PEF meetings in June. The report flags a question which is not posed often or clearly enough – why has the pay (and wider opportunity) gap between women and men stopped closing over […]
Read moreMark Weisbrot and his colleagues at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Analysis have just released a report that estimates the economic impact of a U.S. slowdown on the Americas, including Canada.   They estimate the impact simply through trade adjustment, assuming in the low adjustment scenario that the U.S. trade deficit falls from 5.2% of GDP in 2007 to […]
Read moreThe New York Times has an article today about how, unlike households, American corporations are piling up cash. Unlike most American consumers, whose failure to save has exasperated economists for years, the typical American corporation has increased its savings so sharply that it probably has enough cash on hand to completely pay off its debts. While I haven’t looked at […]
Read moreThe good news is that the Bank of Canada today matched the maximum market expectation of them, a half point cut in the target for the overnight rate. They even suggested that further interest rate cuts are in store. “Further monetary stimulus is likely to be required in the near term to keep aggregate supply and demand in balance and […]
Read moreI am glad that Jim Flaherty’s budget did not actually come through with a rumoured exemption for capital gains income. Recall that the Conservatives’ 2006 platform had promised a ridiculous and unworkable exemption from income taxes on capital gains so long as the winnings were “re-invested.” This high-profile broken promise still clearly niggled the Harper government, and expectations were high […]
Read moreIn working on the CAW’s recent submission to the Red Wilson panel, I did a bit of work to debunk the common argument that the growth of the “services economy” can somehow offset the damage that is occurring these days to our manufacturing sector and other tradeable industries. Here is the link to our full submission (which is introduced in […]
Read moreI want to encourage folks to look through the CAW’s detailed submission to the federal government’s panel on competition policy (headed by Red Wilson). Here is the link: http://www.caw.ca/whoweare/CAWpoliciesandstatements/pdfs/CompetitionInvestmentPanel.pdf I think it’s a major statement about the structural transformation occurring in Canada’s economy as a result of the global commodity boom.  Basic summary: high global commodity prices have boosted the […]
Read moreI recently took a crash course in the fascinating, challenging economics of municipal finance. I was one of the 6 members of the independent panel that was formed to review the City of Toronto’s fiscal situation. The panel issued its report last month. Most progressive economists have long recognized the growing economic importance of cities, and the urgent need for […]
Read moreAnd so, as we recover from Tuesday’s budget and recoil at the spectacle that is the Cadman affair, let us all pause and mark this moment for it may be the last of an era, one we may come to know as the “pre-PBO” era, an era where, in the context of contrived “budgetary scarcity,” the political goal is to […]
Read moreStatistics Canada revealed today that, in the fourth quarter of 2007, we ran a current account deficit for the first time since 1999. It is difficult to get a handle on what pushed us into deficit because the raw and seasonally-adjusted numbers paint quite different pictures of quarterly changes. The raw numbers indicate that, from the third to the fourth quarter, […]
Read moreI’ve posted below some interesting comments from Richard Shillington, a senior associate at Informetrica Ltd – who among many other accomplishments has drawn attention to very high effective tax rates on low income Canadians, and the failure of many programs to reflect the realities of life in low income. I think Richard advances a good alternative solution to a real […]
Read moreSeveral articles in today’s Globe and Mail assume that the US Democratic Party’s desire to renegotiate NAFTA threatens Canada. On the contrary, Canadians should welcome this initiative. Senators Clinton and Obama have called for limits on the ability of foreign investors to directly challenge public policy under NAFTA’s notorious Chapter 11. Canada has been the victim of more such challenges, […]
Read moreIf anyone had any doubt…
Read moreI want to piggy-back very briefly on Marc’s post from Tuesday (and update yesterday) which suggested that the proposed Tax-Free Savings Account won’t “promote investment” like the government says it will (see page 76 of Budget). The empirical literature I’ve seen certainly supports his argument — most corporate investment is financed from retained earnings, which in turn suggests that consumption, […]
Read more