We are just curious to know who is reading this blog, and would love to know a little bit more about you, including those who don't usually comment.
1. What is your nationality or country of residence? (What proportion of our readers are Canadian?).
2. What is your profession/occupation? Private/government/education sector?
3. How much economics background do you have? None? Read a few economics books? Taken a few courses? BA, MA, PhD?
4. Any other comments or suggestions about the blog?
Feel free to comment anonymously, if you wish.
Thanks!
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Albertan 😉
Graphic design/equity research
BA econ
I like all the posts that talk about the microfoundations of money. What it is, why it is or isn’t different, how it has value etc. Keep up the good work!
1) Canadian, live in the US
2) Physicist, research at a respected university
3) No formal econ background. Have read an inordinate number of blog posts and wikipedia articles about basic econ concepts. I feel like I now have enough of a grounding to reasonably speak the language.
4) No comments other than to keep up the good work.
I should note that by “no formal econ background” I am leaving out the 3 (fairly) advanced courses in mathematical finance that I have taken.
Canadian
Reinsurance
Undergrad business degree and CFA – read 10 or so econ/finance blogs regularly and listen to Russ Roberts every week (learned more from Russ and the blogosphere than all other eductaion combined, by a mile)
I think that you guys have a great thing going here and I would hesitate to introduce a new posting category (like beginner topics) that is already treated well elsewhere. There’s already quite a lot of repetition in the blogosphere. For example, Simon Johnson’s The Baseline Scenario has a great beginners posting series. Maybe you could have a slightly richer links section that directs people to useful sites and your explanation as to why you think it’s worthwhile.
I love the high level of this blog. Very educational (see #3).
Thanks!
Canadian, living in the United States
PhD student, second year
Some undergrad (mainstream econ) and some graduate (political economy, mainly heterodox)
Dutch
Central bank
MA
Canadian. Vancouver.
Academic.
Undergrad. Some graduate work.
Canadian
Student
Working on my BA in Econ
I like to see Canadian economics distinguished from that of the rest of the world, especially the US (not that you guys don’t do this). Our cultures are so intertwined that many common Canadians think that what’s going on down south is what is happening up here, thanks to our consumption of American news. It often isn’t true.
French in France
Software / Private sector
Few courses in economics during my engineering training / read lots of econ paper (and econ blogs)
If you have some time, comment on http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2009/01/misleading-nature-of-unemployment.html
And/Or comment on the following piece of data:
From OECD normalized numbers for 2007 (latest available):
* men aged 25-54
employment divided by population
France: 88.3% (hence 11.7% jobless)
USA: 87.5% (hence 12.5% jobless)
normalized unemployment rate
France: 6.3%
USA: 3.7%
So with a slightly higher relative working population in this age/sex group France has … a 70% higher unemployment rate than the USA.
* women aged 25-54
E/P
FR 76.1
USA 72.5
unemployment
FR 7.7
USA 3.8
So here we have clearly more women working in France (3.6 percentage point) relative to their population but unemployment is 102% higher in France!
* question
Any paper studying this discrepancy in OECD normalized numbers? For male 25-54 there’s no real reason not to work, so what are all those USA men doing?
US (South Carolina)
Education.
Ph.D. Economics
I like the monetary theory.
Canadian
Not-for-profit (International Development)
BA Econ
Really enjoy reading your posts! Certainly one of my favourite blogs along with Krugman, Naked Capitalism and Calculated Risk.
Canadian
Accountant
A few courses at college
General interest in economic theory
Canadian
Business professor
A couple of courses during my Master’s (another PhD in Operations Research here!)
I enjoy the relaxed tone of the blog, and the civilized nature of the comments.
Canadian/UK citizen now resident in US.
Corporate finance consultant.
SM in Management plus a few economics department graduate courses.
Find your blog very interesting, especially Nick Rowe’s posts. Thanks for the effort you put into it!
“So here we have clearly more women working in France (3.6 percentage point) relative to their population but unemployment is 102% higher in France!
* question
Any paper studying this discrepancy in OECD normalized numbers? For male 25-54 there’s no real reason not to work, so what are all those USA men doing?”
It’s strange that the original blog post to which you link focuses so heavily on employment population ratios for 25-54. When you instead focus on the more usual (for the US) definition of employment population ratio (ages 16+) a quite different story emerges.
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ForeignLabor/lfcompendiumt05.txt
2007 annual data (last available)
Both sexes, 16+ employment-civilian population ratio
France 51.8
US 63.0
Canada 64.2
Now, take a look at
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LFS_SEXAGE_I_R
For the OECD standard stat (15-64) for both sexes, 2008
France 64.6
US 70.9
Canada 73.7
So, where do the big differences come in? Well, both sexes 15-19:
France 11.5
US 32.6
Canada 47.2
Okay, you might say, but who wants to be working at 18? What about true young workers (20-24)?
France 52.2
US 66.8
Canada 71.6
Hmmm. And since tertiary educational attainment in France is lower than in the US or Canada you can’t really assign this difference to young people at university. And finally, the big one. 55-64:
France 38.2
US 62.1
Canada 57.5
So, at a guess, I’d say that the higher French unemployment rate largely comes from younger workers who have much more difficulty finding a job in France, while there are also large numbers of (likely) voluntarily retired people who are in the highest (for the US and Canada) years of their earning potential (this doesn’t contribute to unemployment, but does go to explaining the difference between the 25-54 numbers and the more inclusive numbers)
American, scientist/not working, read a few books and many blogs. They are probably like me, would like to work at something they are passionate about but can only find meaningless drudgery or would have to move somewhere they don’t want to live. Highest earning potential means too expensive to employ and most desirous of offshoring. Also it means high earning careers with short lives. Burn bright, burn short.
Canadian
University teaching
Ph.D. in Econ.
I enjoy this blog. It helps to remain up to date about latest Canadian economy. Interesting analyses by Stephen and Nick.
MattM “It’s strange that the original blog post to which you link focuses so heavily on employment population ratios for 25-54. ”
As stated I’m focusing on this category because (at least for male) there’s no social reason for people in this category not to work, hence optimal E/P is likely near 100%, very simple.
16-24 might want to study instead of working, so economically optimal E/P is clearly not 100%.
For 55 and above depending on retirement policies desired E/P will also not be 100%: why work if the law says you can retire at 60 and have the money to do so?
So nothing strange in this choice if one want to study comparable E/P and unemployment where a clear optimal value exist for E/P.
Now, you diverted the discussion but provided no clue about why in this (quite significant, in fact including most workers) category where optimal E/P is likely 100% we are observing such a wide discrepancy between E/P and unemployment.
But you’re right it also casts a serious doubt on unemployment measured on other categories, but that’s not my first target for discussion.
“Now, you diverted the discussion but provided no clue about why in this (quite significant, in fact including most workers) category where optimal E/P is likely 100% we are observing such a wide discrepancy between E/P and unemployment.”
I didn’t divert the discussion at all. I provided what appears to be the major reason for the higher French unemployment rate despite a higher employment population ratio among 25-54 year olds; namely a significantly higher unemployment rate among French youth (who are, as I previously stated LESS likely to be in tertiary education than their North American colleagues).
And as far as 25-54 year old men are concerned, you simply stated without any real justification that the “ideal” E/P ratio is 100%, and that any deviation from this is due entirely to some economic failure. While some people in that age group are obviously discouraged workers, it’s far from obvious to me that differing social circumstances might not lead to slightly higher rates of willful unemployment in this demographic group in the US, say, compared to France. A higher rate of postgraduate/professional education, for example, would do it.
At any rate, I’m not going to be continuing this discussion any further here, since I don’t want to further distract from the original point of the blog post which was the reader survey. I simply wanted to point out that concentrating on the 25-54 cohort in order to discuss unemployment is a bit myopic, as a significant part of the unemployment rate derives from younger workers.
Canuck
Journalist who covers this stuff for a network newscast and national wire service
Undergrad in History, bailed on double major in economics/history because the math did me in when I hit intermediate macro and intermediate micro (loved the theory) though. Great blog.
Canadian (un autre maudit en QC).
Researcher in university.
Ph.D. in another field… did take Eco 101.
Am interested in getting more opinions on the housing market and whether we will have a big decline such as that being experienced south of the border.
Canadian
Currently unemployed, former strategy consultant and lawyer
MBA (Michigan) and B.Comm. (Concordia)
Canadian
Economics Prof
PhD
Canadian
Accounting student, currently working in corporate asset management (private).
Extensive online reading. I’ll have to take introductory econ in the next year or so for my degree.
The bulk of your writing is very good. From time to time you get into a technical discussion that requires substantially more econ background than what I’ve got.
Canadian
Private Sector Economist
MA Econ
Don’t change a thing!
Canadian
Civil engineer
B.A. in economics
I started reading a lot of economic blogs when the wheels started to fall off the global economy in the summer of 2007. By about 6 months ago I realised that the situation in many parts of Canada (for ex. Montreal where I live) is very different from the situation in parts of the world where major media tend to be located (California, New York, London). I wanted a more Canadian perspective and found this site.
Brazilian, dropped out of an MA after taking every econometrics class I could take, currently employed in a consulting firm doing various kinds of econometrics, some system dynamics and generally strutting around as an energy analyst.
Canadian
Compensation Analyst (government)
B.A. History
No courses in Economics, but have discovered in my 40s that I’m a bit of a stats nerd. I read the blog as a supplement/corrective to what I hear/read in the news. It’s also interesting to see what we do well as a country, what we can do better, and to be directed to sources I might not find otherwise.
Malaysian
Financial industry
BSc(Econ) and M(Econ)
Love what you’re doing, keep it up!
Canadian in Canada.
Housewife.
None. I don’t remember how I came to read this blog but I’m idly curious enough to continue.
MattM, ah sorry, I think you misread the statistic I used: I do not compare 25-54 E/P and “whole population” unemployment, but with also 25-54 unemployment. Hence the puzzle is contained in a well defined part of the population. Now many people are using “whole population” E/P implying higher is better but for example for 16-24 E/P of 100% is obviously not optimal because we want people to study, so optimal E/P for this population is not “higher is better” hence the “whole population” E/P “higher is better” is just plain wrong. This was to point out why I’m focusing on a particular part of the population where we have certain properties we loose if we include other parts of the population.
Canadian
Hedge fund executive
BA Econ, MBA (finance/ecomomics running themes throughout)
Like – posts that debunk/debate conventional wisdoms, what an economics analysis tells us with respect to how we might deliver public policy (health care, education, etc…)
MattM ” namely a significantly higher unemployment rate among French youth”
On this particular point a careful analysis as usual shows that headline numbers can be misleading, here Dean Baker of CEPR:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/employment-regulation-and-french-unemployment-were-the-french-students-right-after-all/
“””The fact is that the incidence of unemployment in the total youth population is about the
same in the two countries. As the table shows, for male youth the unemployment-to-
population rate is 8.3 percent in the United States and 8.6 percent in France. The
unemployment-to-population rate for female youth is lower in both countries: 7.4 percent
in France and 6.5 percent in the United States.3 The dramatic difference between France
and U.S. is not the relatively large numbers of youth who are unemployed in France, but
the relatively small number of employed French youth, especially students. Using the
proper yardstick – relative to the youth population – the magnitude of the youth
unemployment problem in France is almost indistinguishable from the situation in the
United States.
“””
Canadian (but that doesn’t mean my primary interest is domestic policy)
independent telecom policy/regulatory consultant
B. Comm (mostly finance and economics) & MA economics
Primary interest from a blog-reading perspective is monetary & international finance – both Canada and US (but perhaps mostly US) – most particularly the interplay between use of information, expectations, policy and real factors.
Canadian
Banking – Trading
MA Econ, CFA
Best Canadian Blog
Canadian British
Derivatives desk
MSc Economics
Canadian
VP Finance, Private Sector
A few of the basic university courses while focusing on accounting. If I can find a good distance education school for economics, I might go back and get a second masters in it.
Canadian, but went to college in the States and have been in the States for 15 years.
Management consultant
Have a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but took some econ classes in undergrad
This is a great blog. It’s hard to get a Canadian perspective so this blog is much appreciated. I like the hardcore econ blogs since I learn a lot from them, but it would help if concepts and acronyms are explained for laymen.
Canadian.
Provincial policy analyst.
No formal education, just informed interest.
One of my half-dozen must-read feeds. I enjoy the level of detail and strong opinion.
Canadian
Regulatory agency / policy – legal
Law. Minimal economics background. Did an English Lit degree at Carleton, FWIW.
I like to see how other disciplines think, how policy choices are framed and thought through. Personal interest in economics developed seeing housing bubble inflate in the US and thinking WTF? this makes no sense. Then being able via economics blogs like Calculated Risk to put some concrete analysis around the general WTF sense I had. Also smug that my inexpert predictions about that market and the global implications of a bust were bang on — seems inevitable now, but 4-5 years ago lotsa folks thought it really was different this time! Other than Roubini, Setser, Baker and Krugman, there wasn’t a whole lot of warnings given by the mainstream economists about what seemed patently obvious to a complete neophyte like myself. Happy to see some analysis about Canadian economics.
Canadian
Financial Industry
MA Econ
1 – Canadian
2- Research scientist; gov’t funded lab
3- Books; brother, brother in law; reading DeLong and Krugman and you.
4- I like the reality checks on politicians policy arguments. I like the discussions of how/why Canada is different than USA ( ie why infrastructure programs make less sense in Canada than USA.) Engagements with other public economists: ie DeLong, Krugman on center left; Barlett on right.
Thx
1.Canada(Toronto
2. Software developer (Financial Risk Management software)
3. Some basic training for work related topics.
Canadian
Private Sector Technology Industry Analyst
MBA Finance
Keep up the good work. Even if I can’t understand the minutaie, there is enough there to get the gist.
Canadian
IT, InfoSec (InfoSec is more about econ than people realize) / Financial Institution
MBA (that would “a few courses” – micro, macro, finance), too much reading (liking Ormerod right now, though)
Like it better when you aren’t too deep in the stats; it’s much more accessible then.
Canadian, academic, economics PhD
Canadian Expat (US resident)
Epidemiologist
Background in economics limited to econometrics
Smart commentary from a Canadian perspective is great to read.
Portuguese and Portugal resident (moving soon into the US)
Central Bank/Univ
BA, MA in economics and going
The blog is great. I wouldn’t change anything about its contents, but maybe just the layout to make it easier to read some of your lengthy posts.
US resident, Australian citizen
Academic. Biostatistics.
A few economics books and blogs
1) Canadian – first generation.
2) Vice-principal (High School)
3) Limited to your blog and some a couple other online resources
4) Appreciate Canadian perspective, clear writing and whenever you simplify a concept- thank you.