Monthly Archives: August 2016
Raising the Inflation target vs Depreciating Paper money against Silicon money
A New Keynesian central bank considers two alternative policies to mitigate the risk of hitting the Zero Lower Bound: Raise the inflation target from 2% to 3%. Announce a crawling peg exchange rate between the paper money it issues (currency) and the silicon money it issues (reserves), so that paper depreciates at 1% per year […]
Alpha Banks, Beta Banks, and negative rates
This post is not as clear as it should be. Sorry. It's because my head is not very clear either. I wrote this to try to get my head clearer. An imaginary country uses 7 different media of exchange, issued by 6 different banks. There is one alpha bank, and 5 beta banks. The alpha […]
Why are groceries more expensive in the bulk food section?
Many grocery stores have a bulk food section, where shoppers scoop flour or nuts or spices from big bins into little plastic bags, and then take them up to the cash, where each individual purchase is weighed and priced. There are no brand names. There is no fancy packaging. Shoppers do all the work of […]
Could you pass O-level economics in Pakistan?
The question: What causes unemployment? The answer: Over the fold, taken from a textbook currently used for O-level (roughly grade 11) social studies in Pakistan.
Do (local) housing demand curves slope up?
Take this post with a truckload of salt. This is a second in my series in which "Lost Macro Farmboy tries to get his head around Urban Economics". Think of it as sceptical pushback. I might easily be wrong, but those who know a lot more Urban Economics than I do should be able to […]
Rethinking the traditional academic office
During my time as a professor, I've had a series of offices with a series of big, solid, 1970s oak desks. I have never worked at these desks. They're useless for computing, as they're the wrong height. They're useless for explaining things to students, because they aren't designed for two or more people to sit side-by-side. All […]
The economics of SSHRC research grants IV: A collective action problem
As irritating as it was, SSHRC's infatuation with Research in Buzzword Studies is not why Insight Grant (IG) success rates have stayed so low, even as the budget envelope has increased. The problem is the hard-won budgetary rigour that was established during the last years of the old Standard Research Grant (SRG) program disappeared when […]
The economics of SSHRC research grants III: Research in Buzzword Studies
When SSHRC replaced the old Standard Research Grant (SRG) program with the Insight Grant (IG) program, it did more than simply increase the budget for research grants. It also introduced "priority research areas" (see Frances on this here) that would receive special attention. It turned out that the amounts allocated to these new research areas would […]
Is Ontario Spending Too Little on Hospitals?
Earlier this month, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions issued a media release for their The Fewer Hands, Less Hospital Care report, that made the following statement: “Based on the latest figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Ontario government funding for hospitals is $1,395.73 per capita. The rest of Canada, excluding Ontario, […]
The economics of SSHRC research grants II: Cutting and restoring budgets
In the first post of this series, I noted that much of the reduction in SSHRC research grant success rates during the transition from the old 3-year Standard Research Grants (SRG) to the new 5-year Insight Grants (IG) could be explained by the stock-flow dynamics of changing grant durations. But that's not the whole story: success rates […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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