Category Canadian economy
Employment and Political Regimes: Some Ontario Evidence
According to a recent Nanos poll conducted for the Globe and Mail, after health care, the economy/jobs is the top concern of Ontario voters this fall election. Ontario voters may be interested on how employment growth has fared in their particular neck of the woods under various political regimes.
Ranking Employment Performance
It has been the conventional wisdom in Canada that we have weathered the Great Recession and the financial crisis much better than the rest of the world. Ever wonder why when government comparisons are made about how Canada fared during the Great Recession, the comparison made is inevitably with the G-7 countries?
Is the Dreaded Double Dip Near?
Statistics Canada has released the Canadian economic accounts with GDP estimates for the second quarter of 2011. Overall, real gross domestic product or GDP declined by 0.1 percent in the second quarter following a 0.9 percent increase in the previous quarter.
Gold Prices Bubbling Away
Well, I normally do not follow the price of gold or other precious metals but an email from a former student of mind has piqued my curiousity. My former student is studying medicine rather than economics but has a consuming interest in economics and markets and forwarded me a newsletter on the price of gold […]
Dealing with the Current Financial Crisis
Well, I'm certainly not a macroeconomist and I have even less expertise when it comes to the world of money and banking and international finance. Yet, given the current situation in financial markets and the world economy, I cannot help but wonder if the problem is also institutional. So, here it goes.
Forecasting the Future
I've always been a fan of science fiction and the other day came across an old anthology of Canadian science fiction on my downstairs shelf that contains a copy of a pamphlet written in 1883 forecasting what Canada was supposed to be like in 1983. The actual author is apparently unknown but wrote the pamphlet […]
What does lower US GDP mean for Canadian monetary policy?
A thought-experiment. A rather real thought-experiment. Assume you are Governor of the Bank of Canada. Your job is set monetary policy to bring inflation to the 2% target in the "medium term". You are just about to conclude a meeting where you will decide what target for the overnight rate you will set at the […]
Wealth and Its Distribution: Tomorrow is Yesterday
Wealth and income inequality is a big issue and I thought some historical perspective on wealth inequality might be interesting given that my research to date has led me to conclude that little has changed for the bottom of the wealth distribution at least in terms of relative wealth shares. While there has been the […]
Taylor Rules and the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report
This morning I've been in email conversations with several economists who do not understand, or disagree with, something in the Bank of Canada's latest Monetary Policy Report (pdf). Specifically, Technical Box 2. These include some very good macroeconomists. I think I do understand it. And I agree with the Bank of Canada. So I am […]
What Does a Canadian Housing Bust Look Like?
Housing prices in Canada and the possibility of a burst housing bubble were back in the news during this past week. A report by Capital Economics said that housing prices in Canada could fall by as much as 25 percent over the next three years as a result of a loss in market fundamentals that […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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