Author Archives: wciecon
Cyclical productivity growth and the manufacturing sector
This post was written by Simon van Norden of HEC-Montréal. Here is a quick graph from FRED of US economy-wide vs manufacturing employment growth: One of the questions that I've had is whether the more rapid productivity growth in aggregate was the result of (a) faster productivity growth across lots of sectors, or (b) concentrating […]
Partial vs General equilibrium lumps of labour
Does an increase in productivity cause labour demand to increase or decrease? The answer to that question, and how we go about answering it, depends on whether we are talking about one small sector of the economy (partial equilibrium), or the economy as a whole (general equilibrium). (I was doing general equilibrium in my previous […]
International comparisons of construction employment in the recession
Many participants in the ongoing discussion ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], etc) on international comparisons of the evolution of output and employment have raised the point that construction employment has played a more prominent role than usual in the most recent recession. I've put together a few graphs that may be useful. I'd also like […]
Productivity, labour demand, and employment
This topic has come up a couple of times in comments on previous posts. Suppose there's an increase in labour productivity. Maybe because of improved technology. How will that affect labour demand, and employment? I'm just going to work through the absolutely standard long-run classical textbook analysis of this question, with the help of a […]
Does the rest of the world subsidize research on the American economy?
When studios shoot movies or TV shows in Canada, they stick US licence plates on the cars and pretend Toronto is New York (the Rudy Giuliani biopic Rudy), Alberta is Wyoming (Brokeback Mountain), and BC is Kansas (Smallville). Studios do it because anything explicitly Canadian tanks in the ratings. The same rule applies to blogging. […]
Spain, Ireland, and the US. All breaking Okun’s Law.
In my last post I noted that the US was abnormal in comparison to the other G7 countries. In all the other countries GDP fell by more than employment, so labour productivity fell. That's what normally happens in a recession. Okun's Law says so. But US GDP fell by less than employment, so labour productivity […]
US Productivity Exceptionalism
Stephen's got standards. So I'm going to steal his graphs from his last post, and write the post he could easily have written. Before you look at Stephen's graphs, ask yourself this question. How well did the US fare in the Great Recession, in terms of GDP and employment, compared to other G7 countries? Now […]
The generosity collapse
People give when they're asked. Jim Andreoni and Justin Rao have proved it. They ran the following experiment: one person, the allocator, was given 100 'money units', worth $10 in real money. She was free to choose how much to keep for herself and how much to give to another person, the recipient. The recipient, […]
How Much Would You Be Willing to Pay to Reduce Murders by 30%?
And furthermore, would you be willing to make the change if it meant making changes to the water supply?
The federal budget: Austerity or stimulus or neither?
This year's federal budget is going to be an interesting one. A two-year stimulus package was introduced in 2009, which meant that the 2010 budget didn't have much to say. But now some decisions will have to be made. Should the government extend the fiscal stimulus? Follow the United Kingdom's example and embark on an […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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