Monthly Archives: May 2007
The Bank of Canada should raise interest rates tomorrow, but it probably won’t
The Bank of Canada hasn’t changed its target for the overnight rate since May 24, 2006 – seven consecutive decisions to not change the target have followed. But there are several reasons to think that the time has come for this streak to end: Core inflation has been steadily drifting up over the past few […]
Homogamy, inequality and social mobility
A couple of recent studies by Statistics Canada on the phenomenon of ‘assortive marriage’ have generated some comment. The point is easy enough to explain and it’s not really hard to understand: Changing role of education in the marriage market in Canada and the United States: …54% of Canadian young couples had the same educational […]
Results from a natural experiment: Economists are different
Last year, in my report on the inner workings of the adjudication process for research funding applications at the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), I made the following complaint: For some reason that has never been clearly explained to me – and I’ve done this twice – SSHRC insists on a fixed ‘success […]
From Ghawar to Athabaska
Jim Hamilton points us to Stuart Staniford’s analysis of the decline in oil production in Saudi Arabia’s most important oil field: After Stuart’s monumental research, I really think the burden of proof is on those who claim that Saudi Arabian production can continue to increase. At this point, we need not the conclusions of experts […]
Connecting profits and investment
Paul Krugman’s column on the apparent disconnect between high profits and low investment (as ever, the indispensable Mark Thoma provides the reference) has a bit of déjà vu for Canadian readers: haven’t we seen this before? But more fundamentally, I don’t see why we should expect that there should be a stable relationship between current […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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