Author Archives: wciecon
Don’t forget Tobin’s q, Mr Bernanke!
It bugs me when people forget Tobin’s q. It’s not as though James Tobin was some sort of wild-eyed fringe monetarist. He was a very mainstream Keynesian economist. Ben Bernanke missed an opportunity to invoke the effect of stock prices on Tobin’s q and hence on investment as part of his explanation of why loosening […]
Another view of the sluggish US labour market
My latest post at the Globe and Mail's Economy Lab talks about the distinction between the net changes in employment reported by the Labour Force Survey and the gross flows in and out of employment. In preparation for that post, I looked up the data from the US Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) […]
What (I think) Paul Krugman was saying
Paul Krugman is a very good communicator. I try to emulate him. But I think he blew it on this post. Everybody has an off-day. No big deal. And it wasn't a simple thing to talk about anyway. This is what I think he was saying. This is my attempt to say it more clearly.
Economic nationalism and potash
Those were the topics of an online discussion in which I participated at the Globe and Mail this morning.
Why isn’t the multiplier infinite?
Assume the worst case scenario. Your economy is stuck in a permanent liquidity trap. It will stay there forever, unless you do something. Do you have to do something big, measured in the trillions of dollars? Suppose you do something, something very small, that has a direct effect of increasing Aggregate Demand by $1 per […]
Trick or Treating, reciprocity and social capital
I grew up in Hillsville. Trick-or-treating was exciting – and exhausting. Just a few treks up long, steep driveways were enough to tire out little legs. There are fewer trick-or-treaters in Hillsville these days. There's a newer suburb, just 10 minutes drive away, that has ideal trick-or-treating demographics: above average household incomes, children living in […]
Manufacturing Profit Margins, The Canadian Dollar and GDP Growth
Two weeks ago Rob Gilroy posted some fascinating research by National Bank on the profit margins of various manufacturing industries and how they would be affected by a 5% appreciation of the Canadian dollar: Note that profit margin reduction differs between manufacturing industries. This is due to the different exporting profiles of different industries (the […]
CIBC World Markets Predicts 93 Cent Dollar
From CTV News: CIBC World Markets expects the Canadian dollar to sink to about 93 cents (U.S.) this winter. I decided to see what CIBC World Markets were predicting for the price of oil this winter. I couldn't find a winter prediction, but did find their prediction for 2011 of $75. Plug $75 into MERT […]
A preliminary estimate for Canadian 2010Q3 GDP growth
The August 2010 GDP numbers have been released (increase of 0.3% over July), so It's time once again to update my series of posts (most recent: 2010Q2) in which I try to take the GDP numbers from the first two months of a given quarter, mix them with the LFS numbers from the third month, […]
Confessions of a central planner
"So Nick, how come a free-market economist like you is acting like a central planner?" I heard that a lot when I was an associate dean. Sometimes it was said to tease me. Sometimes out of genuine annoyance. I had my reply ready. "There are three ways to allocate resources. The market is best; soviet […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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