Author Archives: wciecon
Who pays corporate taxes?
Not corporations. Oh sure, maybe someone employed by a corporation has to write out a cheque to the order of the Receiver-General, and the cheque may even have a corporate logo on it. But corporations do not pay taxes – people do. The question is which people. Or, in the language of public economics, what […]
A sea change in Canadian federal politics?
Today’s National Post has two, apparently unrelated columns that suggest we might – just might – be witnessing an important turning point in federal politics. The first is that the Conservative Party of Canada is peering into the Void of Complete Irrelevance, and is getting out the springboard: Andrew Coyne – Will the Tories jump […]
Convergence in Canada
In a previous post, I was sceptical of a claim made by the Globe’s Murray Campbell to the effect that the policy of redistributing from ‘have’ to ‘have-not’ provinces hasn’t worked. I’ve spent some time looking at the data, and one mystery has been cleared up: Ontario’s nominal GDP per capita was indeed 103% of […]
Maybe equalization is working after all
In today’s Globe and Mail, Murray Campbell says that the federal govt’s policy of redistributing tax revenues to the ‘have-not’ provinces is not working (subscription req’d). That may be, but the evidence he provides isn’t particularly convincing. For example, …Ontario’s gross domestic product per capita has dropped to 103 per cent of the national average, […]
The Canadian Macroeconomic Study Group meeting is this weekend
I’d like to go, but it’s a long way from Quebec City to Vancouver for a weekend conference. The programme looks interesting. Here are some papers that I wish I could see in person:
Explaining the CAD-USD exchange rate II: Interest rate differentials
Using interest rate differentials to predict exchange rate movements is a good lesson in hubris. In 1997, the Bank of Canada’s Board of Directors had one of their regional meetings in Quebec City, and as part of this exercise, local notables were invited to an off-the-record dinner with then-Governor Gordon Theissen and other Bank officials. […]
CPI inflation slips out of the zone
Statistics Canada releases September CPI data: "In September, the CPI posted a 3.4% increase over September 2004." "On a monthly basis, the CPI All-items index rose by 0.9% in September. There have been only three increases of comparable magnitude over the past 15 years. Not since the introduction of the GST in January 1991, and […]
Dumbest comment on the Bernanke nomination so far…
…comes to us courtesy of the National Post’s Terence Corcoran. After mentioning the ‘massive’ US trade deficit and ‘the current fashionable concerns about global financial imbalances’, he drops the following clanger: It’s not good enough to stay the course: But what’s to be done about it? In a final sentence, he seemed to be advocating […]
Shaking the Booga-Wooga Stick that is NAFTA’s Chapter 11
In today’s Globe and Mail, Jim Stanford is upset at how the BC govt handled their teachers’ strike: legislation, fines, etc. This is of course a defensible and understandable position for someone who works for a union, but he lets his indignation get the better of him when he reaches for the NAFTA Chapter 11 […]
The unbearable lightness of being the US investment balance
Timothy Geithner of the New York Fed is worried about the US investment balance: Our trade deficit is now roughly the size of the current account deficit, and very large relative to our export base. And our net investment income balances are now likely to move into deficit. It matters because of the trajectory of […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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