Monthly Archives: May 2013
If you don’t like low interest rates, you want the Bank of Canada to loosen monetary policy now
Two weeks ago I wrote a post "Monetary stimulus vs financial stability is a false trade-off". My opening lines in that post were: "There's an idea floating around out there that I fear may be influential. And that idea is horribly wrong. Which makes it dangerous. And I want to try to kill it." Today, […]
Do New Keynesians need to assume (much) labour hoarding?
We know that measured productivity falls in a recession (relative to trend). Real Business Cycle theorists say that this is because a negative productivity shock is what caused the recession. Keynesians say that a negative aggregate demand shock is what caused the recession, and labour hoarding (firms don't like to lay off workers even if […]
Which is the most bike friendly city in Canada?
The 2006 Canadian census asked people about their usual mode of transport to work or school. Only a small fraction of those answering the question reported that they cycle to work or school, and city with the highest percentage of cycle-commuters is….
Why bikes are cooler than cars
The car is in decline. The Economist says so, and so does the New York Times. Cars are boring; bikes are cooler. Here are the top 10 reasons why. 10. Cars are for stuff People from the pre-computer era have books, DVDs, TVs, stereos, big photo albums, board games, and playing cards. They need cars […]
Three Short Observations on the Economics of Waterways
The Rhine River is the heart of significant economic activity as a European transport and commercial corridor. Running 1,233 km from the Alps to the North Sea, its rich economic hinterland generates commercial traffic, which made it attractive as a source of revenue for regional lords and masters for centuries. Hence, the numerous castles, which […]
Pictures of Selma-Montgomery
James Dean knows how to tell a story. These days he'll share his thoughts on Burning Man ["But Ed, you and I know you can't run an economy this way"] or on advising the South Sudan government how to set up its central bank. But his best stories are from his days as a graduate student at Harvard in the […]
Can Chinese Tourism Save Europe?
In its long history, France and Paris have been invaded numerous times but the latest invasion from the East is not from Les Allesmands but from China. Its only May but Paris is already inundated with tourists and many of them are from China and Japan. A recent story by Arnaud de la Grange in […]
Is the abandonment of religion greatly exaggerated?
The headlines around the release of the National Household Survey have proclaimed "Many Canadians are losing their religion". Yet it is not obvious this claim stands up to serious scrutiny. Canada's religious profile evolves in two fundamentally different ways. First, people immigrate or emigrate, are born or die. Every new Canadian has their own religious […]
Yup, the NHS did produce some weird data
While writing a short comment for today's Globe, I put together a table comparing the 2011 National Household Survey data on ethnicity with the 2006 data. As the raw numbers didn't make it the Globe article, I'm reproducing them here:
Macroeconomics when all goods are non-rival
Sometimes it's good to build really weird models. Because bits of the real world are a bit weird, even if the whole world isn't as totally weird as the model, and taking an extreme case can help us understand the effect of those weird bits. Plus it's fun. I'm going to assume that all produced […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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