Monthly Archives: February 2013
Men: Nature’s Second Sex
Pity the poor male springbok. As soon as he reaches sexual maturity, he is pushed out of the herd by the dominant male. Alone on the plains, he is easy picking for lions, leopards and cheetahs. The best survival strategy is to team up with other young males and form a bachelor herd. It's safer, […]
Labour supply, lions and elephants
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they […]
What is an “excess demand for money”?
I know what it means to say there is an excess demand for apples. And I know where to look to see whether there's an excess demand for apples. I go to the apple market, where people buy and sell apples for money. If I see that it is hard for people who want to […]
Draft notes for teaching Intro Money
I always suffer self-doubt when I teach the Money part of Intro Economics. Perhaps I'm over-thinking it, and it would be better for my students if I told myself to shut up, and just give them some simple clear story. But how to get it simple and clear, yet not horribly wrong or incomplete? I'm […]
Do Japanese emission controls contribute to global warming?
Japan has one of, if not the, strictest emission control regimes in the world. Upon purchase, when a car is three years old, and every two years after that, each car must undergo a rigorous and sometimes costly Sha-ken inspection. These ensure that it meets tough emission standards and is in sound mechanical condition. Sha-ken makes […]
Universities, Public Funding & Entrepreneurship: The Consequences of Risk
Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates asked some interesting questions in his morning blog post. The world of university funding in Canada is changing – there is more money overall for universities but governments have been paying a declining share of university operating budgets with the remainder coming from tuition and assorted sources of […]
Aspiring to asbestos
On the way back from the Zambezi river crossing, the driver told me of his life's ambitions: he wanted to be middle class, to give his children a good start in life, and to have an asbestos roof. In this country, he told me, there are two types of roofs: metal and asbestos. Asbestos is […]
Hot potatoes and hot yams
Money (the medium of exchange) is an asset. But the demand for money is different from the demand for any other asset. Here is an (inadequate) parable that tries to explain why it is different.
A monetary policy target can only be defeated by a better monetary policy target
"Monetary policy can cause bad things to happen in financial markets, which can cause bad things to happen in the rest of the economy. Therefore NGDP targeting is wrong." I made up that quote. But if I had to summarise M.C.K.'s long article in two short sentences, that is how I would do it.
Inheritance
Well, Ontario has a new finance minister – Charles Sousa – and according to the Toronto Star: “Charles Sousa, the two-term Mississauga South MPP who finished fifth in last month’s leadership race, will succeed the retiring Finance Minister Dwight Duncan at the treasury. An affable former Royal Bank executive, Sousa inherits a $11.9-billion deficit that […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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