Author Archives: wciecon
Health System Efficiency: Saving Money Can Save Lives Too
It turns out that having a more efficient health care system is not just about sustainability or bean counting – it also can save lives.
Shadow banking as required reserve tax avoidance?
This is speculative. I don't know whether it works empirically. Or, I should say, I don't know how much it works empirically. The effect I am talking about here might be large, and explain almost everything. Or it might be small, and explain almost nothing. I'm just throwing it out there. Legally required reserves, if […]
Deflationary banks
It's good to think about weird worlds, which you know are different from the real world. It helps you understand the real world better. Here is a weird world where commercial banks' wanting to expand loans and deposits would reduce aggregate demand and cause deflation. But the only weird assumption is that currency and deposits […]
Temporary vs permanent money multipliers
"Otherwise what I was mostly trying to suggest was that the banks anticipate the fact that the central bank won't let them double the supply of money and factor this into their loan and deposit pricing. The idea is that the current amount of deposits is not so much based on the curren[t] supply of […]
What is a “managed exchange rate”?
It's a relative thing. I think it can only be defined relative to some specified alternative, like inflation targeting. It doesn't mean anything otherwise. There are n different things a central bank could target, where n is an extremely large number. (Strictly, n is infinite, since any combination of two members of n is also […]
Differentiating Ontario Universities
Yes, it is April 1st but this post is dead serious. A study was recently done for economics, chemistry and philosophy departments across ten Ontario universities in an effort to gain insight on teaching workloads and research productivity. The reason? Ontario universities are tight for money and the government is looking for productivity gains and […]
Two first year multipliers: their truth, beauty, and usefulness
Alone again or, just me and the money multiplier, against the world of trendy sophisticates who have put aside such childish things. It brings out the reactionary contrarian in me. And the world needs more reactionary contrarians, to help provide negative feedback against the faddish bubble multiplier of popular theory. There are two multipliers we […]
Police, Crime and the Great Canadian Crime Drop
It would appear fiscal restraint has finally caught up with police services across the country. The recent release of Police Resources in Canada, 2013 by Statistics Canada documents a decline in police strength after nearly a decade of increases as well as a slowdown in per capita spending. The crime rate, however continues to fall.
There can be an excess supply of commercial bank money
Commercial banks are typically beta banks, and central banks are typically alpha banks. Beta banks promise to convert their money into the money of alpha banks at a fixed exchange rate. Alpha banks make no such promise the other way. It's asymmetric redeemability. This means there cannot be an excess supply of beta money in […]
Liquidity pile-ups on the Wicksellian roundabout
I'm trying to model something, and failing miserably. So I'm going to try to articulate my vision, hoping for inspiration. Imagine a large number of cars forever circling around a very large roundabout. Initially they are all going the same speed, and are evenly spaced. What happens if one car slows down temporarily? (I saw […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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