Category Canada – Politics
Suppose that printing money were irreversible
Suppose, just suppose, that you believed that printing money was irreversible, or just very hard to reverse. So central banks could increase the supply of base money by printing money, but could not (or could not easily) reduce the supply of base money again by burning money. And suppose you knew that central banks had […]
Why are lawyers against higher inflation?
An extremely quick Google search convinces me that lawyers are massively over-represented in the Canadian Parliament. I am quite sure that something similar is true in other countries too. Lawyers are far more powerful in setting government policy than are ordinary middle-class people like me. So if we want to understand why monetary policy is […]
Interest rates, asset prices, and the rich
Does anybody here remember 1982? When interest rates went very high, and so asset prices went very low. Just the opposite of today. What were people saying back then? 1. Were they saying: "Central banks are setting high interest rates and making asset prices low, which is bad for the rich, who own all the […]
Ontario’s Economic Future?
Well, the election is over and I must admit I was not that surprised the Liberals formed the government but I am surprised at the fact it is a majority government. There are now numerous economic challenges facing the province and suspect after the fun of campaigning from the left, the Liberals may eventually be […]
Flogging a Dead Horse III: The weird response of Benjamin Zycher
This post was written by Mike Veall of the Department of Economics at McMaster University. Sorry, I am still on about the research that was used to formulate the Ontario Progressive Conservative jobs plan. Again I emphasize this is about the underlying econometric research by Benjamin Zycher, Senior Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. It is not […]
Pre Debate Warmup: Ranking Employment Across Ontario Political Regimes
Well, tonight is the Ontario election debate and inevitably job creation will come up as a topic. On the one hand, Tim Hudak will have to deal with the fallout over his Million Jobs Plan. On the other hand, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath will need to demonstrate what their plans for employment growth in […]
Flogging a Dead Horse II: A million jobs anyway?
This post was written by Mike Veall of the Department of Economics at McMaster University. I have been asked by a few people about my statement here that “I would hope that whoever is in charge, whoever wins the election, that eight years from now we would have a million more jobs …I would expect the […]
Resources, Revenues and Alberta Premiers: The Oil Must Flow!
In Ancient Rome, a key imperial duty was to maintain the flow of grain and gladiatorial entertainment to the masses of Rome. Woe to the Emperor if the flow of grain was interrupted and the entertainment fell in quality. The Empire’s mantra was that the grain must flow! For Alberta premiers, charged with the guardianship […]
Fiscal Federalism: A Cross-Border Comparison
As a federal country, one of Canada’s hallmarks is a well-developed system of intergovernmental transfers. Indeed, we often remark that Canadian provinces are dependent on federal transfers for large chunks of their spending and there is some debate over whether Canada’s provinces should engage in more own-source revenue effort rather than plead for more transfers. […]
Visioning the Surplus
The Federal government is poised to move into a period of fiscal surplus. According to the 2014 Federal Budget, the 2014-15 fiscal year will see a 2.9 billion dollar deficit (which could actually be a small surplus due to the 3 billion dollar contingency fund). After that, 2015-16 will see a 6.4 billion dollar surplus […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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