Monthly Archives: November 2011
Difficulty with comments
There's been a recent surge in the number of comments taken hostage by our spam filter. If you don't see your comment within a short period of time, please send an e-mail to either me or the post's author, or post a short comment to the effect that a previous comment doesn't seem to have […]
Public Policy and Job/Publicity Opportunities for Economics Students
Yesterday NDP leadership hopefull Brian Topp released a taxation policy paper [PDF]. Sun News interviewed Topp last night and I acted as a responder – video available here. One particular item of interest is the introduction of a new 35% tax bracket starting at $250,000 (the existing highest tax bracket starts at $132,406 in 2012 and […]
Why has (private) debt increased?
I'm not talking about government debt. I'm talking about the debt of households and firms. And I'm talking long run, not just the last few years. Over the last several decades, the ratio of debt to GDP has increased a lot. Not just in Canada, but in most rich countries, as far as I know. […]
Real wages during the recession
I've seen a few stories about recent trends in wages, and too many of them seem to be trying to make a big deal out of movements that – when in put in context – are really too small to say much of anything. [Updated in an almost-certainly futile attempt to combat confirmation bias.]
The political economy of nominal wage targeting
WARNING: if you are not a macroeconomist you may not understand this post, even if you think you do. This is especially true if you are not a macroeconomist but think you know something about "political economy". (When I hear the words "political economy" I usually reach for my shovel.*) This post is an experiment. […]
What is actuarially fair insurance?
Actuarially fair insurance has an expected net pay-off of zero. From a consumer's point of view, an insurance contract is actuarially fair if the premiums paid are equal to the expected value of the compensation received. This expected value is, in turn, defined as the probability of the insured-against event occurring multiplied by the compensation […]
Blue sky money one – the dual mandate
Leland Yeager's (ed.) "In search of a monetary constitution" was the book that most excited my thinking about monetary economics as a PhD student. He asked the contributors to the volume to design a monetary system from scratch. He told them to think "blue sky". I can't remember all the contents. The answers given were […]
Darwin Awards, and other random thoughts on the Euro
1. Is the European Central Bank, or maybe the whole EU, a good candidate for a Darwin Award? There doesn't seem to be a category for institutions that bring about their own demise through their own self-destructive behaviour, but perhaps there should be. In the very long run we should perhaps be thankful for dysfunctional […]
Could the failed German bond sale be good news for the Euro?
File this one under "desperately looking for a silver lining in the unfolding disaster". Suppose, just suppose, that all 17 Eurozone countries were identical. Suppose they were all at the Eurozone average. Suppose they all faced the same default risk and moderately high interest rates on their government bonds. What would the European Central Bank […]
Provincial Government Health Spending: The Equity Dimension
The meeting of the federal and provincial/territorial health ministers in Halifax on Thursday will be preoccupied with the sustainability of health expenditures and the coming negotiations over the renewal of the health care accord. Naturally, the provinces want to ensure that federal transfers continue to rise to meet their needs while the federal government will […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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