Category Canadian economy
Happy New Year….Really!
Well, it’s the start of a New Year and traditionally there should be a sense of optimism to a fresh start. Indeed, at least one forecasting company feels that the global outlook for 2017 is at least stable despite the challenges of 2016 and indeed is expecting an uptick in commodity prices. However, given the […]
No Health Deal. Now What?
Well, I just finished watching the federal health and finance ministers discuss the failed federal transfer health deal on the news. I suppose coming just a few days before Christmas, a dispute over federal health transfers can become a new sort of Canadian holiday tradition given it has happened before with the December 2011 unilateral […]
Why I=S is a bad place to start doing macro, again
I was reading Philip Cross's article "The Limits of Economic 'Stimulus': How monetary and fiscal policy have sown the seeds of the next crisis". I came to this bit in the Executive Summary: "Low interest rates also depress savings and therefore investment." It is clear from the context that he is talking about the Bank […]
Why the USA Has A Trump and We Don’t (Yet…)
In the wake of the US presidential election and Donald Trump’s ascension to the mantle of “leader of the free world”, one is left pondering the factors that differentiate Canada from the United States. When I was a young boy and visited relatives in Italy, much to my confusion we were invariably referred to as, […]
Project Link: Piecing together recent Canadian economic history
I've already ranted a couple of times – here and here – about Statistics Canada's 'Attention Deficit Disorder': its habit of starting new time series using new methodologies without updating the historical data. As I put it in my first rant, Statistics Canada must be the only statistical agency in the world where the average […]
Fewer Fiscal Multipliers and more Clarity from the Bank of Canada
At the risk of being thought "cavalier", I don't like what Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz is reported as saying by Kevin Carmichael. Inflation targeting is supposed to be inflation forecast targeting. The Bank of Canada is supposed to do what is needed to ensure that its own internal forecast of future inflation (at […]
Fiscal Balance and Unemployment
As we all know, Canada will be running deficits well into the foreseeable future. Based on the figures from the 2016 Federal Budget, as a percentage of GDP Canada will see its deficit go from a surplus of 0.1% in 2014 to -1.5% in 2016 and then will range from a low of -0.6 percent […]
Federal Budget 2016: Quick Comment
Well it is Budget Day in Canada! Today’s federal budget is designed to address Canada’s uncertain economy by running large deficits to stimulate spending. Interestingly enough, the spending is somewhat more skewed towards people rather than things (infrastructure) which probably makes it a long term calculated pre-election strategy.
Importing people is not like importing apples
Remember all the old Canadian nationalists? The ones who said that the (Canada-US) Free Trade Agreement would destroy Canadian culture? The ones we economists defeated back in the 1988 election? I'm beginning to wish we hadn't defeated them quite so thoroughly. They were wrong. But they sorta, kinda, did have a point. Social/economic institutions are […]
Resources, Investment and the Current Canadian Slowdown
Real GDP growth in Canada slowed down during 2015 with the drop in the price of oil and the crash in the resource sector. The economic contribution of the main resource producing provinces to Canada’s economic performance is particularly important when it comes to recent capital formation as an economic driver.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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