Monthly Archives: June 2009
Stimulus? What stimulus?
Over here, I expressed confusion at Mark Carney's reported remarks to the effect that 'whatever good news existed was caused artificially by massive government and central bank stimulus': What government stimulus? The 12-month moving average of federal government program expenditures has been falling since December. (The deficit is due to declining tax revenues.) It occurs […]
Monetary stability vs financial stability
I want to compare and contrast the pursuit of monetary stability with the pursuit of financial stability. I am talking mainly about Canada, though much of what I say applies to other countries as well.
It is Canada’s sad fate to have a comparative advantage in really bad economics journalism
Murray Teitel embarrasses us in front of the English. And we hadn't even begun to expunge our collective guilt for Naomi Klein. Please please please go out and buy a copy of Filthy Lucre. Buy several; give them to your friends. Or else I may have to start stitching US flags on my luggage when […]
The housing market: the oversold story of the Canadian recession
Here is what is hopefully one of the last of a once-robust breed – The Apocalyptic Canadian Housing Market Story: Judging by the latest real estate data, the Canadian housing market could scarcely be better. Average home prices are up more than 16 per cent this year, and in May they hit an all-time monthly […]
Parsing Mark Carney at third remove
There's much in this CP story that I don't understand. The thrust seems to be that Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney is making it known that he is more pessimistic about the state of the Canadian economy. It's hard to know what to make of it all. Why is Bank of Canada's Carney raining […]
Reader survey: feedback and comments
Well, it's been just over a week since we posted the Reader Survey, which is a good time to take stocks of the responses.
Comparing employment growth in Canada and the US over the longer term
A recurring theme in discussions about what we might expect from an eventual US recovery is that it will be long and painful. This is not entirely due to the severity of the current recession. As Michael Mandel notes, the recent drop in US employment capped a decade in which employment growth was already slower […]
Don’t borrowing-constrained households spend more of a tax cut??
One of the standard arguments against the Ricardian Equivalence Proposition is that some households are borrowing-constrained. They want to borrow and spend against their future income, but can't find anyone to lend them money. So when the government gives them a tax cut, financed by higher future taxes, the government is effectively lending them the […]
Monetary and fiscal policy ought normally move together
We normally think of monetary and fiscal policy as alternative methods of stabilising fluctuations in aggregate demand. It is only in abnormal times, like the present, when central banks' interest rate instruments are at or near the zero lower bound, that we might want to use both monetary and fiscal policy together. Only if we […]
The economic impact of canoeing
Seeing the path on the rocks worn by millions of passing feet on an old portage just upstream of Ottawa reminds you that what is now a short detour off a recreational walking trail was once the trans-Canada highway. Canoes once had a very large economic impact in Canada. Now they have very little.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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