Monthly Archives: March 2012
FIRE! FIRE in the labour market!
The story of the Canadian labour market in the second half of 2011 was a recovery knocked off course by events in international financial markets. The crises associated with the US debt ceiling and European sovereign debt drove down commodity prices and the Canadian dollar. So the fact that employment growth slowed in the wake […]
International finance with no international trade
Sometimes I like to make assumptions I know are totally false. Not (or not always) for simplicity, but just to see what happens. It helps me understand the world better. For example, sometimes I like to assume a barter economy; it helps me understand monetary exchange better to see what would happen if we didn't […]
A river keeper’s story
There is a canoe put-in on the Rideau River known as "Thomson's Landing." It is marked by a six foot high stake, against which Mr Harry Thomson (for whom the put-in is named) tracked the height of the Rideau River's spring flood for almost 50 years.
Who is More Fiscally Sustainable: Ottawa or Queen’s Park?
Both the Federal and Ontario budgets are nearly upon us and the key watchword for both is going to be the sustainability of the public finances.
Test driving Canada’s new open data portal
Canada, following the lead of the US (http://data.gov), the UK (http://data.gov.uk/), and Australia (http://www.ands.org.au/) has created a new open data portal, http://data.gc.ca. The data portal contains all of Statistics Canada's CANSIM data, as well as data from the Department of Finance, Health Canada, Environment Canada, Transport Canada, Citizen and Immigration Canada, and so on. To try […]
Teen Sex and Econometrics
The Canadian Community Health Survey asks respondents "In the past 12 months, have you had sexual intercourse?". The overwhelming majority of 18 to 19 years, when asked that question, answered….
Teaching SRAS shocks
I hate teaching Short Run Aggregate Supply shocks. 1. It's easy to teach them wrong. 2. I don't understand them very well. 3. I don't think anyone understands them very well.
Dealing with the Baby Boom: You Only Die Once
It has been a week of immersion in health economics for me. Last Friday, we had Herb Emery from Calgary visiting Lakehead and he gave a seminar presentation on generational balance and public health care spending in Canada. I also just got back from a workshop on health expenditure forecasting and along with last Friday’s […]
Inflation targeting, American put options, and the liability of central banks
My last post was about whether money was a liability of the issuer. Lee Kelly, in a comment, summed up my thoughts: "Base money isn't really a liability of the central bank, but good monetary policy usually involves pretending that it is, e.g. by instituting a nominal GDP or inflation target." The Bank of Canada […]
How to videos by MumblingProfessor
I've created some videos (screen recordings) for my third year taxation course, showing how to download data from CANSIM, adjust it for inflation, and do some other basic analysis.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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