The Progressive Economics Forum

Poverty and Recent Immigrants

September 18, 2007 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

Human Resources and Social Development Canada have posted a research report http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/publications_resources/research/categories/inclusion/2007/sp_680_05_07_e/sp_680_05_07e.pdf It is no secret or surprise that new immigrants (86% of whom are workers of colour) face more significant labour market barriers than other working-age Canadians, and that they are at greater risk of experiencing poverty. But more empirical detail is always useful. This study uses StatsCan (SLID) […]

PEF in The Globe and Mail

September 17, 2007 Erin Weir 2 comments

Several of us regularlyÂ provide media commentary through our jobs at the CCPA, CAW and CLC. Once in a while, reporters quoteÂ statements posted on this blog in that capacity. However, the Progressive Economics Forum itself rarelyÂ receives media coverage. The excerpts below are from page L4 of todayâ€™s Globe and Mail. This story drew upon my “Levittâ€™s Been Thunderstruck” post. Â For […]

Dion-omics: Corporate Tax Cuts and Deregulation

September 16, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

“Dion Would Wield Tax Axe to Spur Growth” was the headline in Tuesdayâ€™s Financial Post. The story reported that “Mr. Dion said his party would look to cut taxes across the board” but that “He would not elaborate on which taxes he would cut.” However, Mondayâ€™s Liberal press release seemed quite clear about which taxes would be on the chopping […]

More on the Myth of Big Government – Canada vs US

September 14, 2007 Andrew Jackson 2 comments

Erin’s recent post http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2007/09/12/government-size-canada-us/ prompted me to read Ferris and Winer’s interesting piece on the size of government in Canada and the US. The underlying data for the article have been usefully posted by the authors at http://http-server.carleton.ca/~winers/ (You’ll have to find the spread sheet posted at that site under author’s papers, and then look at the sheet for functional […]

Competitiveness Meets Poverty and Inequality

September 12, 2007 Erin Weir 2 comments

On Monday, Ontarioâ€™s Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity released a paper entitled, Prosperity, Inequality, and Poverty. As Andrew Sharpe pointed out in a review of Jack Mintzâ€™s book, free-market “policy entrepreneurs” often completely ignore the distributional consequences of their recommendations. The Institute deserves credit for trying to grapple with distributional issues (and also for quoting Sharpe extensively). The Institute observes […]

Is Government Bigger in Canada than in the US?

September 12, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

There are several interesting articles in the most recent (June 2007) issue of Canadian Public Policy, but the one that grabbed my attention examines the size of government in Canada and the US. Most commentators assume that the Canadian public sector is significantly larger. A few point out that the huge reduction of Canadian-government spending (relative to GDP) since the […]

Recent Immigrants and the Manufacturing Crisis

September 10, 2007 Andrew Jackson One comment

Statistics Canada today released a study on immigrants in the job market, based on the recent inclusion of questions identifying immigration status in the Labour Force Survey. It’s no surprise to learn that unemployment levels are significantly higher among recent immigrants. In 2006, the unemployment rate among very recent immigrants (in Canada 5 years or less) was 11.5%, and it […]

Giving the Financial Post its Due

September 8, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

Thereâ€™s no question that the Financial Post, as the National Postâ€™s business section, tilts heavily to the right. However, todayâ€™s letters section (FP15) could almost have been copied and pasted from this blog. In the first letter, Shalom Schachter responds to the whiny Labour Day op-ed from John Mortimer of LabourWatch. In the second letter, Kris Larson notes that continued […]

Todayâ€™s Labour Force Survey and Coming Layoffs

September 7, 2007 Erin Weir 3 comments

The Canadian Labour CongressÂ news release follows: Employment statistics: no plan for coming layoffs, Georgetti says OTTAWA â€“ “With so many high profile layoffs announced recently that have yet to come into effect, it is hard to find consolation in the modest employment creation statistics for the last month,” says Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress in regard to […]

Impacts of Employment Insurance Cuts

September 4, 2007 Andrew Jackson 3 comments

Here’s the link to a major empirical study on the impacts of the Liberal cuts to the Employment Insurance program, with a specific emphasis on impacts on women workers. The study is by Monica Townson and Kevin Hayes and was commissioned by Status of Women Canada , and quietly posted to their web site a couple of weeks ago.

The Fraser Instituteâ€™s Job-Creation Strategy: Cut Wages

September 2, 2007 Erin Weir 4 comments

The Fraser Instituteâ€™s latest study of North American labour markets intends to demonstrate that public-sector employment, minimum wages, unionization, and labour laws that facilitate collective bargaining damage labour-market performance. However, its “Index of Labour Market Performance” measures the quantity of jobs with almost no regard for quality. Even this questionable index is not negatively correlated with the policies criticized by […]

Supporting the Troops or the War

September 2, 2007 Erin Weir 5 comments

Janice Kennedy has a pretty good assessment of the Afghanistan debate in todayâ€™s Ottawa Citizen. My only slight quibble is that she does not mention the Liberals, who got us into this quagmire.

Exchange Rates as Policy Target: The Japanese Case

August 31, 2007 Jim Stanford One comment

How do we explain the behaviour of the Japanese yen — which has not only avoided the major appreciation (against the U.S. dollar) that other major currencies have experienced (most acutely including Canada’s), but is actually down by over 15% since 2005 (despite Wall Street’s financial wobbles)? Japan has the world’s third largest trade surplus, so if exchange rates reflect […]

Cameron on Stelco

August 31, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

The following column by Duncan CameronÂ is from rabble.ca: With the takeover of Stelco by U.S. Steel, Canada loses its last domestically owned steel producer. Despite urgings from the Steelworkers, the Canadian Autoworkers, and the Canadian Labour Congress, our provincial and federal governments have been unwilling to adopt a strategy to provide national direction to natural resource companies, and key industries. […]

2007 Economic Outlook and Policy Forum

August 29, 2007 Erin Weir 2 comments

I have just returned from the annual conference of the Canadian Association for Business Economics in Kingston. On Monday evening, we heard from Pierre Duguay, a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada. Without specifically mentioning Jimâ€™s Globe column, he suggested that some people mistook the Bankâ€™s intervention in financial markets as a deviation from monetary policyâ€™s exclusive focus on […]

Exchange Rate Appreciation and Manufacturing Investment

August 28, 2007 Jim Stanford 6 comments

An interesting article just published by my friend Robert Blecker (American University) reinforces our concerns regarding the long-run impact of the loonie’s recent appreciation on the size and competitiveness of Canada’s manufacturing industry. Here’s the formal citation & abstract: The Economic Consequences of Dollar Appreciation for US Manufacturing Investment: A Time-Series Analysis Author: Robert A. Blecker a Affiliation: a American […]

The Dangerous Shortage of Government Bonds

August 27, 2007 Jim Stanford One comment

Here’s an interesting sidebar to the current hissy fit roiling financial markets:Â It has turned out that Canada’s public debt is now dangerously low. Huh? We all know thatÂ where debt is concerned, private is good and public is bad.Â That’s why we cheer on consumers as they pump up their indebtedness to a record ratio (over 100%) of disposable income, […]

Danny Williams and Oil Royalties

August 25, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

In April 2006, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams walked away from proposed Hebron development because the multinational oil companies were not offering sufficient benefits for his province. The national media and federal government heaped scorn on this decision. A couple of days ago, Williams secured a new deal that gives the province a 4.9% equity stake in Hebron, a 6.5% “super […]

Been There, Done That, Got the T-Shirt

August 25, 2007 Jim Stanford 5 comments

Forgive me for greeting the latest financial meltdown with a big yawn. We are facing a combination of two textbook cycles, neatly overlaying each other: 1. Classic speculative cycle:Â something catches the eye of speculators, they drive it up in price in search of (utterly unproductive) speculative profits, the rising price produces a self-fueling speculative bubble, and then something happens […]

Bank of Canada Rides Over the Hill

August 25, 2007 Jim Stanford 5 comments

Nice to see the Bank of Canada swinging into action the last couple of weeks, pumping many billions of dollars of liquidity into financial markets to ease the sub-prime-inspired credit crunch, and making very hard-nosed statements about its intention to â€œdefendâ€ its desired interest rate regardless of where the markets want to go. Now thatâ€™s my kind of central bank. […]

Credit Crunch

August 22, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

Whereas Jim Stanfordâ€™s latest Globe column argues that central banks should be as willing to intervene on behalf of manufacturing as on behalf of hedge funds, Andrew Coyneâ€™s column in todayâ€™s National Post argues that central banks should intervene as little as possible and not bail anyone out. At least Coyneâ€™s position is consistent and avoids the double standard identified […]

Competitiveness vs. Comparative Advantage

August 21, 2007 Erin Weir 2 comments

This post is in response to the following excellent comment from Stephen Moore, the man who will trounce Ralph Goodale in the next federal election (or at least do better than I did): April 2007 testimony before the parliamentary committee on International Trade saw Industry Canada, DFAIT reps and others stress the importance of the SPP (Security & Prosperity Partnership) […]

Ontarioâ€™s Income and Property Taxes

August 21, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

To put some figures on yesterdayâ€™s commentary about the social-service download to municipalities and low provincial-income taxes, I checked the latest Equalization tables (which are publicly available from Finance Canada). In 2005/06, Ontario collected $22 billion of personal-income taxes. At national-average rates – an average dragged down by low-tax Alberta and by Ontario itself – Ontarioâ€™s income-tax base would have […]

Too Little, Too Late

August 20, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

Premier McGuinty has pledged to relieve Ontario municipalities of $1 billion in disability-support payments and prescription-drug benefits if his government is re-elected. Municipalities will continue to pay forÂ a furtherÂ $3 billion of provincial social-service programs. During the Great Depression, Canadaâ€™s patchwork system of municipal relief proved totally inadequate. Subsequently, provincial governments established social-welfare programs and uploaded unemployment insurance to the federal […]

The Minister Responds

August 16, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

Todayâ€™s National Post includes a letter from BCâ€™s Minister of Economic Development, Colin Hansen, in response to my TILMA op-ed. It is great that the Post has facilitated some debate on this important issue and that the Government of BC feels compelled to participate in this debate. The fundamental point of disagreement is whether TILMA applies to all regulations (but […]

Drummond on Corporate Taxes and Investment

August 15, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

For years, Don Drummond of TD Bank has publicly observed that business investment in Canada isÂ lagging far behind soaring profitsÂ and called for further corporate-tax cuts to spur investment. He never seemed to perceive a contradiction between the fact that corporations are not reinvesting their record-high after-tax profits and the claim that even higher after-tax profits would boost investment. In a […]

The National Post on TILMA

August 14, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

On Friday, the National Postâ€™s lead editorial suggested that inter-provincial trade barriers are significant enough to validate the Quebec-separatist view that “Canada is not a real country.” The following edited response from yours truly is printed as a “Counterpoint” in todayâ€™s edition. UPDATE (August 16): BCâ€™s Minister of Economic Development has responded to my op-ed. In a recent editorial, the […]

The Other National Newspapers on TILMA

August 14, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

Following the National Postâ€™s complete endorsement of TILMA on Friday, The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star ran columns on Saturday that were relatively skeptical of this agreement. As both columns note, the joint statement released by the Premiers in Moncton leaves the door open to making the Agreement on Internal Trade more like TILMA without committing to do so. […]

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