Author Archives: wciecon
Sustainable Universities
Judging from some of the ruminating going on in the media lately, it would appear that Canadian universities will soon be facing a new assault under the mantra of sustainability. Some of this is a spillover from the United States where rising tuition fees have exceeded the general inflation rate fostering a view that higher […]
In applied economic research, what actually matters?
"his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year." Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Taller men are more desirable marriage partners. One theory […]
James Hamilton on Christopher Sims and identifying monetary policy “shocks”
I am not an econometrician. I'm not very good at econometrics. Read this post in that light. I think that what some econometricians are doing is horribly wrong. They are making a wildly implausible assumption. I want to give my reactions to what James Hamilton said about what Christopher Sims said. James is nicely clear.
When is a missing observation not really missing?
Imagine you want to learn about the causes of disability in Canada. You could structure your questionnaire in one of two ways.
How to borrow money
The process is quite easy, provided you borrow enough. Have you ever, dear readers, had occasion to borrow money? Have you ever borrowed ten dollars under a rigorous promise of your word of honor as a Christian to pay it back on your next salary day? Have you ever borrowed as much as a million […]
The macroeconomics of Big Wedding cultures
How do you build a macroeconomic model of a "Big Wedding" culture? Do Big Wedding cultures spend too much on consumption and too little on saving and investment? If so, what's cause and what's effect? I don't know the answer. I don't even really need to know the answer. But this question has been stuck […]
Why do people think that Canadian job creation rates require a policy response?
Pundits and politicians are calling on the government to "do something" about the state of the Canadian labour market; these calls are presumably based on a perception that job growth is still weak. It's not clear upon which data this assessment is based. The data that would be most informative are no longer being collected, […]
Three goods means two markets, if one good is money.
Paul Krugman says: "I guess my question is, why can’t we walk and chew gum at the same time? I like to introduce the subject with IS-LM as a representation of three-market economics, then say look, in practice short-run policy involves setting an interest rate target and adjusting M to get there, so that’s how […]
It’s still ISLM to me
There are some policy-relevant substantive questions that are being ignored in the current futile blogosphere debate over ISLM. I'm coming back to that below. Brad De Long says it's tribalism. People want to show their tribal allegiance by using or not using ISLM. Or at least appearing to use or not use it. That may […]
Hysteresis in the teaching of econometrics
When I was a graduate student – some 25 years ago – there was a practical reason for why Bayesian methods played little or no role in the textbooks. Even though classical methods asked the wrong questions* and forced people to wade through a myriad of complicated and contradictory ways of answering them, it was […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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