Author Archives: wciecon
Monetary Science Fiction
Chris Dillow says that economics is like literature. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. But if it is literature, economics needs more science fiction. Paradoxically, imagining radically different worlds can help us understand better how the actual world works, as well as helping us consider policy alternatives. Imagine a world where all borrowing and […]
Another Foray into Data: New Macro-Financial Data
I think Stephen Gordon's Project Link and its piecing together of fragments of Statistics Canada data is a solid step in the right direction. If our national statistical agency is not going to provide long-term consistent data series, then I suppose its up to the researchers to lead the way. Another case in point is […]
Project Link: Piecing together recent Canadian economic history
I've already ranted a couple of times – here and here – about Statistics Canada's 'Attention Deficit Disorder': its habit of starting new time series using new methodologies without updating the historical data. As I put it in my first rant, Statistics Canada must be the only statistical agency in the world where the average […]
Equity and diversity plans won’t solve the Canada Research Chair program’s gender problem.
The Canada Research Chair program has a long-standing gender problem. Way back in 2002, the CRC Secretariat commissioned a gender-based analysis of the program which concluded: There are several sub-disciplines/fields where women are under represented among the Canada Research Chair nominees. In part, this may be due to the lesser "research maturity" of some disciplines […]
Canada’s residential schools and the dangers of educational hubris
In 1953 the Canadian Geographical Society published a glossy black-and-white volume called "Image of Canada." It has the usual inspiring pictures of Saskatchewan wheat fields and Toronto city lights; of majestic glaciers and mighty log booms. The book also contains images that open a window to the past, and let us see the world through 1950s eyes. […]
The Brexit-News Boom?
Start with a bog-standard second-year textbook Mundell-Fleming ISLMBP model. Start in equilibrium at Y*, then hit it with a negative shock to Net eXports. The IS curve shifts left initially, at the previous equilibrium exchange rate. But the central bank is sensible, and allows the exchange rate to depreciate sufficiently to shift the IS curve […]
Front vs Rear Wheel Steering for Monetary Policy
You are driving a car with rear-wheel steering and no reverse gear. You are driving alongside a wall. If you drive too close to the wall you are trapped, because you would need to steer your rear wheels into the wall in order to get your front wheels to move away from the wall. If […]
What is investment today worth tomorrow?
Once upon a time, canals were the latest thing in infrastructure investment. During the early years of the Industrial Revolution, they made it possible to move heavy goods, like coal, from mines to factories, using a fraction of the energy required by road transport. Delicate goods, like pottery, could be shipped with little breakage. Enterprising engineers and industrialists built […]
Cheshire Cats and New Keynesian Central Banks
How can the Cheshire Cat disappear, but its smile remain? How can money disappear from a New Keynesian model, but the Central Bank still set a nominal rate of interest and create a recession by setting it too high? Ignore what New Keynesians say about their own New Keynesian models and listen to me instead. […]
Is it Banking Crisis Season?
One really has to wonder if having the season move into “fall” is correlated with the fall of the financial sector. While some time in the making, the 2007-08 subprime financial crisis moved into crisis mode during August of 2007 and by early fall central banks had moved to lower discount rates and pump liquidity […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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