Category Canadian economy
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
The Fuss Over TFSAs
Well, there seems to be a fair amount of fuss over the proposed doubling of the contribution limit to Tax Free Savings Accounts(TFSAs). Kevin Milligan says the case for raising the annual TFSA limit is shaky as the benefit will be mostly to high wealth households rather than those at the middle or bottom of […]
Steve Poloz on inflation targeting
Stephen Poloz is Governor of the Bank of Canada. Here is the speech he delivered at Western. The whole thing is worth reading. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But I see a tension in Steve's speech. He recognises that Divine Coincidence has failed, and that inflation targeting has failed. But he doesn't want […]
Canadian Convergence
Mark Brown and Ryan MacDonald at Statistics Canada have just released a Research Paper on Canadian provincial convergence and divergence of per capita household disposable income from 1926 to 2011. They find that while there has been convergence over time, it has proceeded in fits and starts with periods of external shock such as the […]
Is Poloz Pulling down the Loonie?
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz insists he is not talking down the Canadian dollar and its depreciation relative to the US dollar is the result of economic developments – in particular the fall in oil prices. So is oil driving down the dollar? How about a quick and dirty regression?
Instrument independence vs target independence under flexible exchange rates
Sebastian Edwards (HT Mark Thoma) says that monetary policy independence under flexible exchange rates is an illusion. This conflates instrument independence with target independence. Instrument independence is always an illusion, given the target. Target independence is not an illusion.
Another Canadian Debt Ranking
Statistics Canada has released provisional estimates of the Canadian Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) for financial flows and the balance sheets of general government and government business enterprises for the period 2007 to 2012. The net liabilities per capita picture for provincial and territorial governments has changed since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Interest rates, exchange rates, and the Bank of Canada
Last week the Bank of Canada cut the overnight rate of interest from 1.00% to 0.75%. The exchange rate dropped 2 cents (about 2.5%) on the news. [Update: I forgot to add (because I figured Canadians already knew it, but then remembered others probably wouldn't) that the Bank of Canada has "done nothing" (with interest […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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