Author Archives: wciecon
Fiscal Ships
“We're two ships that pass in the night, And we smile when we say it's alright We're still here, It's just that we're out of sight Like those ships that pass in the night” Barry Manilow Next week is a double-header of sorts for economists interested in Canadian public finance – a Federal budget on […]
Secular stagnation, liquidity, and rent/price ratios
No answers here, only questions. By "secular stagnation" I mean "declining equilibrium real interest rates". Most explanations of secular stagnation say it is caused by a rising desire to save and/or a falling investment demand. Call this the "Saving/Investment Hypothesis". But there are lots of different real interest rates. For example, the real interest rate […]
Funding the gerontocracy
This year, the per-vote subsidy once enjoyed by Canadian political parties ends. Parties will have to raise funds entirely through donations. So, who gives? There is a generous federal tax credit for political donations, worth 75 percent of the first $400 donated, 50 percent of the next $350, and 33 percent of remaining donations. The federal tax credit […]
SSHRC Grant Trends in Economics
Well, the past week saw notifications go out to academic economists on the results of their 2014-15 Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Grant applications. Needless to say, there will be a lot of unhappy campers but then there always are when it comes to grant application success. Needless to say, […]
Overdrafts with 100% reserve banking
I was reading Frosti Sigurjonsson's proposal for monetary reform in Iceland. [Click on the document thingy halfway down the page.] His proposal is a variant on 100% reserve banking. I got stuck on page 72 and footnote 66, where he discusses overdrafts. This post is just my attempt to get my own head clear on […]
Funding and the Future of Ontario Universities
Well, the Council of Ontario Universities or COU is looking for a new President and CEO. The role of COU is to serve as a voice for the province’s university sector and help improve the public policies that affect the sector. As the ad for the position states: “As a member-based organization, COU provides the […]
Monetary policy in New Keynesian models is Gesellian
In one important respect, what we call "New Keynesian" macroeconomic models are in fact New Gesellian macroeconomic models. That's only in one respect, but it is important. Silvio Gesell proposed a tax on currency. The higher the tax rate, the faster people would spend that currency. A tax is a negative subsidy. The higher the […]
Buyer’s liquidity vs seller’s liquidity
Liquid goods are easy to buy and sell. Illiquid goods are hard to buy and sell. I think we need to break up "buy and sell" into its two component parts. In a buyer's market, goods are easy to buy and hard to sell. The same good is liquid from the buyer's perspective, and illiquid […]
Asymmetric home bias and the transfer problem
A random thought on Germany and Greece. If apple producers and banana producers have the same symmetric Cobb-Douglas preferences U = A0.5.B0.5 the competitive equilibrium has half the apple crop being exchanged for half the banana crop. But if the apple producers only like apples, and refuse to eat bananas, the relative price of apples […]
A Resource Bust and Yet…
The OECD has cut its growth forecast for Canada citing the drop in oil and commodity prices. With all the talk about the slowdown in the Canadian economy picking up steam and slow growth as a result of the drop in oil prices that began last spring, one might expect some job losses to start […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments