Monthly Archives: April 2013
Financial literacy in the popcorn aisle
A short financial literacy quiz: Take a look at the picture on the right. How much does one box of popcorn cost? The correct answer, for this particular box, is $1.50. However it is not obvious that "two for $3" implies "one for $1.50". In other contexts, customers must make a minimum purchase to obtain […]
How should economists respond to the National Household Survey release?
On May 8th, the results of the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS) will be released. The voluntary nature of the NHS will compromise the quality of the data collected. For example, the National Household Survey asks people about their religious beliefs. Yet religion has a strong influence on volunteering and civic engagement. The National Survey of […]
Taxation and Economic Growth
I had a bit of an intellectual crisis this evening as I pondered the conventional wisdom in economics regarding the choice between reducing consumption taxes or income taxes. Briefly put, the simple conventional wisdom is that taxes on consumption are preferred to income taxes because they encourage saving and long-term capital formation and economic growth. […]
How quickly does hotness fade?
Ratemyprofessors.com allows students to grade a professor's clarity, helpfulness, ease and – just for fun – rate their appearance as "hot" or "not". A professor with more hot than not votes is awarded a chili pepper on the ratemyprofessors.com web site. Hotness declines with age, but how quickly? To find out, I combined ratemyprofessors hotness scores with […]
What happened in 2008?
1. Did a financial crisis cause a fall in expected and actual aggregate demand? (With central banks being unable or unwilling to do enough to stop it). 2. Or did a fall in expected and actual aggregate demand cause (or worsen) a financial crisis? (With central banks being unable or unwilling to do enough to […]
The (slowly) changing face of Ontario economics departments
When I was an undergraduate, many of my professors were Canadian born and American trained. The demographic profile of Canada, and of Canadian economics classrooms, has changed since then, as our country has recruited high skilled immigrants from around the world. But has there been a corresponding change in the demographic composition of the professoriate? As […]
Begging the long run question: inflation variability vs NGDP growth variability
Forget about the short run benefits of NGDP targeting. This post is about the long run benefits. Just suppose, in some alternative universe, the Bank of Canada for the last 20 years had been targeting 5% NGDP growth rather than 2% inflation. And that everyone had gotten used to NGDP growing at 5%. And suppose […]
Debt and Growth
As you probably all know, the Reinhart-Rogoff 2010 study found economic growth slows when the debt to GDP ratio exceeds 90 percent. They used data for 44 countries over a 200-year period and found the relationship between debt and real GDP growth was weak for debt to GDP ratios below 90 percent. However, above 90 […]
Did inflation targeting make the Phillips Curve really flatter or just look flatter?
We know that inflation targeting failed. But we don't know why it failed. One theory is that inflation targeting failed because inflation targeting made the Phillips Curve flatter. It made the Phillips Curve so very flat that keeping inflation close to target wasn't enough to keep output and employment close to potential. Inflation targeting contained […]
Notation: a beginner’s guide
My colleague Lynda Khalaf's favourite saying is: Notation, notation, notation. Bad notation makes a paper difficult to follow. Papers that are hard to read and understand get rejected, or receive lower grades.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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