Author Archives: wciecon
TorStar Bad Economics Watch: I
There may be worse papers than the Toronto Star when it comes to economics reporting, but since it’s the one I’m most likely to read, it’s the one that gets most on my nerves. The Bank of Canada raised its target rate for the fourth time in a row last Tuesday (here’s why), and the […]
What will Conservative economic policy look like?
Ordinarily, the answer to this question would be found by taking the trouble to read the platform upon which the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) was elected. I choose not to do so, for two reasons: It won’t be long (especially if the 2005:4 US GDP numbers really do signify a slowdown over the next […]
The NDP moves up the learning curve
Ever since it was founded in 1961, the federal wing of the New Democratic Party has been trying to figure out a way to break out of its nasty, Catch-22 trap: Many/most voters won’t consider it to be a credible alternative until it wins an election and gets some experience in government. It can’t get […]
The Liberal legacy
Before Christmas, I shared the general opinion that the upcoming federal election would produce approximately the same result as the last one: a Liberal minority that might or might not be large enough to govern with the support of the NDP. But events since Christmas suggest that the Liberals – who have been in power […]
Should we be thinking of the US as a small, open economy?
Kash and PGL at Angry Bear have a couple of recent posts challenging the proposition that reducing the rate at which income from capital is taxed will increase growth rates. I disagree with their conclusions, but I’m more intrigued by the fact that they – along with Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser and the Congressional Budget […]
Yes, we should be worrying about the US yield curve
Jim Hamilton at Econbrowser offers a useful summary of some of the issues surrounding the recent inversion of the yield curve in the US. In the past, whenever long-term interest rates have dipped below short-term interest rates, there’s been a better-than-decent chance that a recession would follow. Brad DeLong explains why: Usually an inverted yield […]
Holiday halt
Since I’ll soon be caught up in a whirlwind of holiday activities with family near and not-quite-so-near, blogging will resume sometime in early January. Joyeuses fêtes
The Irish exception
In some circles (such as on the pages of the National Post), whenever the virtues of the Nordic model are cited, a standard riposte is "What about Ireland?" Well, indeed. When I was putting together the graphs for this post, I found that Ireland was quite literally off the chart.
Nordic Canada: The tax mix
The ‘Nordic model’ has many admirers, and I’m one of them. It appears to have the best of both worlds: the wealth that markets provide best, combined with the social programs that governments provide best. As I noted earlier, there’s no obvious tradeoff between these two objectives: we can have both, if we want. For […]
Can’t win for losing
A couple of weeks ago, we learned that Canada had a near-record $9.3b current account surplus in 2005Q3. Today, Statistics Canada announced that the net investment position deteriorated by $17b over the same period. The reason, of course, is the continuing rise of the CAD: The value of international assets fell to $1,001.1 billion, a […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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