Author Archives: wciecon
Golden classics: great composers, consumers’ preferences or economic incentives?
Last night I went to a concert of golden classics – pieces like the Toreador song from Carmen that have the audience humming along. And I started wondering – why, when I go to a classical music concert, do I so rarely hear something written by a living composer? I can think of three explanations.
The federal deficit bottoms out
The most recent numbers from the Fiscal Monitor confirm that the deficit has started to shrink. These data are monthly and have important seasonal factors (particularly at the end of the fiscal year), so I've been tracking the 12-month moving sums. These don't quite correspond to the annual numbers, but they give us a good […]
He’s at it Again…
Professor Gordon, that is. This time it’s the National Post: Economists Niels Veldhuis, of the Fraser Institute, and Stephen Gordon, of Laval University, join host Chris Selley for a surprisingly spirited debate on the elimination of the mandatory long-form census. Also, as Canada’s biggest Hogan’s Heroes fan (seriously – I do a pretty good Col. […]
Rational vs adaptive expectations: a false dichotomy
Arnold Kling has posted another good installment of his Macro Doubtbook. But it contains what I think is a false dichotomy between adaptive (habit) and rational (model-based) expectations. Since Arnold is not alone in thinking this way, I thought I would do a short post to explain why I think it's wrong.
So I’m Not The Only One That Thinks This Way…
From the Toronto Star – Compromise calls for dropping jail time to allow mandatory census to go ahead: Federal Conservatives are being urged to compromise on their axing of the long census questionnaire, perhaps by repealing the threat of jail time for non-completion or pruning so-called sensitive questions… Fellegi said he hopes a compromise can […]
Yes, Libertarians, Census Data Can Be Used To Support Dropping Government Programs Too
During Wednesday CBC’s town hall,Terrence Watson asked: …if the census is only used to _justify_ government programs, but never to shrink or eliminate them, then can anyone see why somebody interested in smaller government — like me — would be suspicious of it? It is a bit of an irrelevant point, because changing the format […]
Another Chat With Prof. Gordon – Noon EST Today
Yesterday it was the CBC, today it’s the Globe and Mail: Taking questions will be Stephen Gordon, professor of economics at Université Laval in Quebec City and a fellow of the Centre interuniversitaire sur le risque, les politiques économiques et l’emploi (CIRPÉE). He is also a co-author of Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, a Canadian economics blog […]
Ninety percent worries
This post was written by Simon van Norden of HEC-Montréal Paul Krugman picked a fight with Ken Rogoff today. The subject is how much to worry about the run up in government debt in the US and Europe. The Financial Times has been running a series of articles on the subject and Krugman claims that […]
Census Town Hall – 2 PM EST
Our Prof. Gordon is too modest to announce this event, so I’ll do it for him. CBC Virtual Town Hall: Ending the mandatory long census form. Join the CBC’s national affairs editor Chris Hall and CBC Politics blogger Kady O’Malley at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, as they host a live virtual town hall forum on […]
Lead Response Time, Signalling and Market Structure
A few months ago I received from Michelle Bennett at Ivey’s Executive Development Program an absolutely terrific piece of research – MIT Lead Response Management Study. The study examines one basic question: When should companies call web-generated leads for optimal contact and qualification ratios? If I could send one study out to every business in […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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