Monthly Archives: December 2009
We are all Albertans / On est tous des albertains
One of the least edifying spectacles of the domestic coverage of the Copenhagen conference was the pointing of fingers at Alberta, most notably by the leaders of the provincial (in every sense of the word) governments of Ontario and Québec. The tar sands are in Alberta, so the reasoning goes, and it's up to Albertans […]
Underestimating the costs of climate change policy is not helpful
One of the things about blogging is that you never know what posts will be jumped on or how they will be interpreted. This post about the Suzuki-Pembina report is a case in point: both sides of the debate seemed to think that I was offering aid and succor to the cause of the climate […]
What is it with Microeconomists?
They are certainly not stupid. And they are certainly not ignorant either. I know that the ones I'm complaining about are smarter than me, and more knowledgeable than me. And that includes economics smarts and knowledge. Some of them make me feel totally inadequate on a daily basis (I read their blogs daily). Some of […]
Greece, the Eurozone, and Canada
I have been following the story about Greece. Like some other Eurozone countries, Greece has high deficit/GDP and debt/GDP ratios. Unlike Canada, but like Canadian provinces, Greece cannot print money. Eurozone countries are like Canadian provinces, as I argued in here back in January. But the Eurozone, unlike Canada, lacks a federal fiscal authority. The […]
The case for the Bank of Canada’s intervening in the forex market gets even weaker
The lines of reasoning that have been advanced over the past few months in favour of slowing the appreciation of the Canadian dollar can be broken down into two categories:
Random Thoughts
Sometimes my brain can't concentrate on any one topic long enough to write a serious post. Or maybe I just don't know enough to give a good answer to some question I want to answer. So here is a random collection of thoughts:
If Canadians were serious about climate change, Prime Minister Stéphane Dion would be the toast of Copenhagen
Here is what Paul Krugman put at the top of his list of Paul Samuleson's contributions to economics: Revealed preference: There was a revolution in consumer theory in the 1930s, as economists realized that there was much more to consumer choice than diminishing marginal utility. But it was Samuelson who taught us how much can […]
What is “the natural rate of interest”?
"The natural rate of interest" is a theoretical construct. It is a theoretical construct that only has a defined meaning within a certain class of economic models. And even within that class of models, the exact definition may vary from one model to the next.
Memo to journalists: Disregard the Suzuki-Pembina report on the costs of climate change policy
The David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute recently sponsored a study that concludes that the economic effects of a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be relatively small. Since its release, any number of journalists have dutifully cut-and-pasted bits from the summary report into their commentaries. But it never seemed to occur to […]
House price risk is negative covariance with your PV desired rents
If you buy a house, the risk is minus the covariance between the price of the house and the present value of the rents of the house you would desire to live in. I disagree with Felix Salmon. Strangely, Felix seems to have misplaced the significance of an idea he had earlier: we are born […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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