Category Canadian economy
Monetary and Fiscal Federalism, Debt, Canada, and the Eurozone.
A government that undertakes a commitment to target 2% CPI inflation does not, strictly speaking, "borrow in its own currency". Its bonds are an indirect promise to pay, via transversality transitivity (damn!), a specified quantity of CPI baskets of goods and services. In much the same way that bonds under the gold standard were an […]
The Balance of the Federation: Canada 1870 to 2016
My contribution to Maclean’s 2018 Chartapalooza was a plot of the federal government’s share of total government expenditure in Canada since 1870. The chart showed that until World War I, with the exception of period marked by the building of the federally subsidized CPR, the federal share of total government spending in Canada was approximately […]
Donald Trump is a Mercantilist
A lot of ink is being spilled on Donald Trump and his America First approach to trade negotiations which has generated considerable trepidation and angst in both Ottawa and Mexico City as NAFTA appears headed for termination. Donald Trump is obsessed with the concept of trade deficits – which the United States does have on […]
Don’t even try to “Normalise” interest rates
If you think that the rest of the economy is normalised, so it is time to normalise interest rates too, you are wrong. If the rest of the economy is normalised, then interest rates must already be normalised. Wicksell said there was some underlying "natural" rate of interest. If the central bank sets a rate […]
The Long Restructuring of Ontario’s Health Spending
Ontario’s hospital sector has made a submission to the provincial finance committee making the case that overcrowding has become so serious that there is a need for more funding. They are seeking a 4.55 percent increase in operating funds for the 2018-19 fiscal year in their pre budget submission. According to numbers calculated from data […]
So What Happens in the Next Recession?
I’m not a macro economist by any stretch of the imagination and yet I cannot help wondering what is going to happen in terms of policy response the next time Canada goes into a downturn. It is not a question of whether there will be another recession, only when. By policy response, I am of […]
Provincial Government Health Spending: The Force Awakens?
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) recently released its 2017 edition of its National Health Expenditure Trends and its worth a trip to its website for the downloadable data on all things related to health spending. I've been on an advisory group to the CIHI with respect to its national health expenditures for a […]
Regional disparities in Canadian economic growth: Theory and evidence
In its recent release of income data from the 2015 census, Statistics Canada helpfully provided data tables for median incomes in 2005 and 2015 for various regions in Canada. The headline number was the 12.7% increase in median Canadian incomes, and there's been some commentary about how the gains during the last decade were not […]
Health Spending and System Characteristics in Canada and Spain
I gave a talk at Memorial University in Newfoundland & Labrador last week sponsored by the Department of Economics and the Collaborative Allied Research in Economics Initiative (CARE). My talk was based on joint research currently underway with David Cantarero Prieto at the University of Cantabria in Spain comparing the determinants of government health spending […]
Looking for a University President
“Some people think that a college president’s life is full of joys and a host of friends. I know that he frequently walks in sorrow and alone because of the times he must do what seems impossible.” Paul V. Sangren (1948) “What a President Learns” Journal of Higher Education, 19, 6, 287-288. Well, my university […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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