Author Archives: wciecon
Money as store of wealth?
This is something that always bugs me with the textbooks' definition of money. They start out well. They provide a functional definition of money; "money is what money does". If people in a given time and place use cigarettes as money, then cigarettes are money, in that time and place. Moneyness is not a property […]
Butterfly wings and meatgrinders
One of the Drummond Report's recommendations for the post-secondary sector is to: Create a comprehensive, enforceable credit recognition system between and among universities and colleges. This is an absolutely essential feature of differentiation [between universities]. Credit recognition could save individual students tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, and give them months or even years of […]
When professors stop being research active
University professors typically divide their time between teaching, research, and administration. In theory, and often in practice, professors' research informs their teaching, and teaching makes people better researchers. Yet, as time goes by, the research ideas come less frequently, it becomes harder and harder to "keep up with the literature", and a certain percentage of […]
Update on PBO Report on benefits for the elderly
Since my original post on the PBO Report (pdf), I have had a very useful email exchange with Chris Matier, the author of the Report. (It is to the PBO's credit that they really do want people to understand what they are saying, and are prepared to spend the time to help us.) This post […]
Gasoline Prices
Well, the Family Day long weekend is upon us and gasoline prices here in Thunder Bay have spiked up again. Last week, gasoline in Thunder Bay was about $1.17 a liter and right now it is about $1.30 though prices are a bit lower on the south side of town. Thunder Bay's prices have been […]
Why I’m Not Worried About Italy’s Economy
With all the doom and gloom about Europe’s economy and the debt crisis, some recent statistics from the Italian Central Bank caused me to reflect that despite its problems, the Italian economy is more robust than one might think because of its strong performance when it comes to private wealth.
Three questions on the transmission of business cycles
I've been mulling this over for the last couple of weeks. I haven't really come up with a clear answer. So I thought I would just throw it out there. I've got three questions. The most important question is the third question. 1. Assume I am an individual household or small firm, and that I […]
Why I don’t recognize your foreign educational credentials
The Canadian immigration literature seems to regard employers with a hint of disapproval. For example, a recent survey talks about "the failure to recognize foreign credentials" as if employers and others are, for some unaccountable reason, not able to recognize a credential when it's staring them in the face. I've just spent the last couple of hours trying to […]
Why is CPP funded, but OAS is Pay As You Go?
(Non-Canadians: this post is for you too, even if you don't know what CPP and OAS mean. They are both pensions for old people. There is only one relevant difference between CPP and OAS, and I discuss it below.) My (very amateurish and random) reading of stuff related to my previous post on Old Age […]
A preliminary estimate for Canadian 2011Q4 GDP growth
This is a bit late. I ran – but forgot to post – my quarterly attempt to provide an estimate for quarterly GDP growth a month before Statistics Canada releases its first estimates (most recent exercise is here). This is done by using simple linear regression model of monthly GDP growth on monthly LFS data […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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