Author Archives: wciecon
Divine Coincidence Failure. UK lessons for the Bank of Canada
According to "divine coincidence", the monetary policy that is best for stabilising inflation is also best for stabilising real output. Divine coincidence seems to be holding up fairly well in Canada. But the recent UK experience is a case where divine coincidence has failed. The Bank of Canada's inflation target is up for renewal this […]
Fiscal Policy, the Environment, and How Not to Solve Policy Problems
Canada and by extension the Canadian government faces a number of challenges. There are two in particular I find fascinating:
Does female employment raise or lower savings rates?
When female incomes rise, household expenditure patterns change. One oft-quoted survey paper suggests: men spend more of the income they control for their own consumption than do women. Alcohol, cigarettes, status consumer goods, even "female companionship" are noted in these studies. Another well known paper found that a UK policy change that transferred resources from […]
Reconciling the Minimum Wage Literature
I'm a health and fitness nut, so I read a lot of health studies as well as using my own body as a guinea pig. I've discovered a lot of things – for instance, I don't know if using creatine monohydrate leads to more strength gains than using a placebo, but I do know it makes you […]
Helmer for the Defense: The Liberals and the CIT
In CIT Cuts: The Waiting Until We Can Afford It Argument I characterise the Liberal position on the corporate income tax as incoherent at best and advocating counter-cyclical tax policy at worst. My very good friend and dodgeball teammate Jesse Helmer has an excellent defense of the Liberal position. In the interest of fairness, I thought you […]
When is a ban a subsidy?
In the United States, surrogate mothers receive fees of about $20,000 to $25,000 for their services. In Canada, the U.K., Australia and a number of other countries, commercial surrogacy is outlawed, but surrogates are compensated for expenses, for example, clothing, food, prenatal vitamins, childcare, travel costs, lost wages, medications, medical bills, etc. In the U.K., reported expenses range […]
Surrogate motherhood: the case for commodification
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have one. So do Elton John and David Furnish, and that woman in the New York Times. They all have children borne by surrogate mothers. In Canada, as in the UK, Australia, France and several other countries, it is illegal to pay surrogate mothers for anything more than their expenses — […]
Tatonnement: in Walras, PSST, and monetary disequilibrium
Walrasian general equilibrium theory models the economy as a system of demand and supply equations. The quantities of goods traded, and the prices at which they are traded, are the solution to that system of equations. Who solves those equations? A fictional Walrasian auctioneer, who calls out prices at random, asks people their demands and […]
Statistics Canada under siege
If there's one thing that has prevented me from despairing completely about the débâcle that is and will be the 2011 census, it's been my faith in the professionalism and expertise of the people who work at Statistics Canada. Their present political masters may be deaf to reason, but this is only a temporary state […]
Why is Canadian GDP Growth Higher Under Liberal Governments?
Canadian economic growth is about two percentage points higher under Liberal governments. At least, that's what my colleagues Stephen Ferris and Marcel Voia found in their recent article in the Canadian Journal of Economics (earlier ungated version here). This is a large impact. For example, if the economy was growing at 1 percent under a Conservative government, […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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