Author Archives: wciecon
On Central Bank Lending to Government
The central bank prints money, lends it to the government, and the government sooner or later spends it (or uses it to cut taxes or increase transfer payments). There seem to me to be two views on this question that are equally daft: The Orthodox Daft View: "Central bank lending to government is a Bad […]
Two Problems with Designing a Basic Income Experiment
WARNING: I don't do (micro) Public Finance. And I don't do experimental economics. Those who have read the literature may tell me they are well aware of these problems, or that I'm wrong about something. Suppose someone asked me to design an experiment to test whether Basic Income would be a Good thing. (They wouldn't […]
Helicopter Bonds as Qualitative Easing
Accounting can be fun. Helicopter Bonds is when the government prints some bonds and drops them out of a helicopter, so whoever picks up the bonds now owns them. It's identical to a bond-financed lump-sum transfer payment. It's identical to a bond-financed lump-sum tax cut (because only net taxes=taxes-transfers matter). The government borrows money from […]
Helicopter Money is Permanent
The shocks in a random walk process are permanent. That does not mean it is impossible for a positive shock to be followed by a negative shock. It does mean it is equally likely that a positive shock will be followed by a positive shock as by a negative shock. That's what I mean by […]
The Neo-Fisherian Counterfeiter
Just a thought-experiment that's been running through my head. You are a saver and lender. You take some of the money you have earned as income, that you don't want to spend yourself, and lend it to people who want to borrow so they can spend it instead of you. Suppose you want to lend […]
What is Employment Insurance For?
If Canada's Employment Insurance program was designed solely to insure workers against the loss of employment, it would look very different. For one thing, the premiums that employees and employers contribute would go towards paying benefits to people who have lost their jobs. But in 2013/14 – the most recent year for which I can find data – […]
How Vancouver Escaped the Freeway Curse
In the 1950s, Vancouver began to feel the pain of traffic congestion. The travel time contour map below, taken from the 1958 study Freeways With Rapid Transit, shows how bad it was. In rush hour it took a 15 minutes or less to get from corner of Georgia and Granville to anywhere in the dark green area – […]
Economics can’t be encapsulated into knowledge pills. And that matters for research funding.
Antibiotics – when they work – are miraculous. A patient does not have to understand what antibiotics are, or why antibiotics are effective. All that is required is for someone somewhere in the world to create an effective antibiotic and put it into a pill. Then it can be shipped to someone with a bacterial infection, and the patient […]
Conceptually costing Basic Income
Micro public finance is not my area, so take this post with a big heap of salt. But: Q. How much would it cost to implement a Basic Income, where everyone gets (say) $10,000 per year? The normal way to approach that question is to multiply $10,000 by the population, then subtract the cost of […]
Federal Budget 2016: Quick Comment
Well it is Budget Day in Canada! Today’s federal budget is designed to address Canada’s uncertain economy by running large deficits to stimulate spending. Interestingly enough, the spending is somewhat more skewed towards people rather than things (infrastructure) which probably makes it a long term calculated pre-election strategy.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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