Monthly Archives: February 2017
Internal migration flows in Canada
Discussions about demographics are typically focused on trends in fertility/morbidity and immigration/emigration, and these are what matter at the national level. But at the local level, trends on internal migration are also important. Statistics Canada has been publishing data on inter-provincial migration for years, but there's only so much you can get out of them. […]
Economists making spectacularly bad forecasts, 1961 edition.
Back in the 1960s, the Ontario government's Department of Economics dutifully cranked out annual population forecasts. What is remarkable about these forecasts is how far wrong they were. The economists completely failed to predict the demographic changes that were about to hit Ontario. Here are the 1961 projections side by side with the actual 1976 population […]
A forgotten cost of the gold standard.
While waiting for the kettle to boil in the Economics department lounge, I searched for something – anything – to read. Then I spotted the 1961 Ontario Economic Survey on the departmental bookshelf. Opening the old volume at random, I hit gold:
Supply Constraints and Ontario Housing Prices
A key feature of housing markets in Canada over the last decade is the sustained increase in prices particularly in larger urban centers such as Vancouver and Toronto. Data from Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) on average MLS housing prices for Ontario as a whole shows that between 1990 and 2015 the increase was from […]
Apple Prices and Core Inflation
An economy produces two goods: apples and haircuts. The production function for apples shifts up or down every year at random, depending on the weather. The production function for haircuts never shifts. The weather causes relative prices to change. When there is good weather, and the apple harvest is large, the price of haircuts in […]
Path-dependence of measuring real GDP?
I normally try to avoid index number theory. Don't trust me on this. It is well understood that real GDP is a very imperfect measure of welfare. We teach that in first year macro. That is not what this post is about. What I'm worried about is whether real GDP is an imperfect measure of […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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