Monthly Archives: July 2014
How big has the effect of increases in the minimum wage been on youth employment?
One of the more puzzling features of the Canadian labour market in the last few years recovery has been the stubborn refusal of youth employment rates to recover from the recession: There may a relatively simple (partial) explanation. This is taken from a recent Statistics Canada study on trends in the minimum wage: There seems […]
A New Policy Think Tank
Well, there is a new policy think tank in Canada and they have just released a commentary on the minimum wage.
When is helicopter money optimal?
Money is fungible. And things get lost in translation, especially between micro and macro. "Helicopter money" is when the central bank prints money, gives it to the government, and the government gives it to everyone, as a freebie. When is helicopter money optimal?
On not quite getting Lloyd Metzler
30 years ago, IIRC, my colleague Steve Ferris said I should read Lloyd Metzler's Wealth, Saving, and the Rate of Interest, because he thought it was a great paper. Yesterday Brad DeLong said the same thing. David Glasner also thinks it's a classic paper. When three very good but very different economists recommend a paper […]
The continuum from monetary to fiscal
Simon Wren-Lewis says (in response to right-deviationist David Beckworth): "Now this does not mean that Market Monetarists and New Keynesians suddenly agree about everything. A key difference is that for David this [fiscal policy at the ZLB] is an insurance against incompetence by the central bank, whereas Keynesians are as likely to view hitting the […]
Three growth stages of the New Keynesian model
This is very very crude. It's something off the top of my head scribbled on a scrap of paper as an outline for a first draft. But I will never go beyond that outline, because I wouldn't be any good at doing it. The history of the Old Keynesian model is very quick. You have […]
New Keynesian neo-fiscalists for increasing austerity
I was off at the cottage when Simon Wren-Lewis and Paul Krugman responded to my post on neo-fiscalism. Amusingly, given Simon's metaphor, the handbrake on the MX6 seized on as I was driving, slowing me down and creating a nasty smell. I did a fiscal bodge-job with a screwdriver to free it, and did a […]
We Are Not Slower, Just More Erratic: Comparing Growth in Canada and the United States
The existence of a productivity gap between Canada and the United States should ultimately manifest itself in terms of the growth rate of real per capita GDP. If productivity growth in Canada is consistently below that of the United States, then our real per capita GDP should also not grow as quickly as the United […]
Learning about theory does not teach people how to theorize
A random question from a Stanford University PhD micro exam looks something like this: The "Robinson Crusoe economy" is the simplest possible general equilibrium model, and students who can solve for Crusoe's leisure and coconut consumption choices have presumably learned something about general equilibrium theory. But they haven't learned how to theorize.
Legislated Taylor Rules again
This is in response to the post (and associated paper) by Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, David Papell, and Ruksandra Prodan (hereafter NPP) arguing for a legislated Taylor Rule in the US. A central bank reaction function tells us how the central bank sets its monetary policy instrument (for example a nominal interest rate) as a function of […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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