Category Everyday economics
It’s time to blunt dentists’ incentives to use general anesthetics
I recently consulted a dentist about getting a tooth extracted. The dentist recommended getting it done under general anesthetic. I responded, "I've had four wisdom tooth extracted under local anesthetic. I've given birth to two children without medication. I think I can handle it." "Ah, but some patients say dental pain is worse than child […]
Making guns obsolete
The US supposedly has a unique gun culture. Yet, for an economist, culture is a lousy explanation. We seek the origins of culture; the economic and social forces promoting and sustaining it. Hunting, frontier living, and war can explain how the US gun culture got started, but not its persistence. Gun-friendly rural areas are losing […]
The Devil You Know vs The Market For Lemons
I told my friend Mike I was thinking of trading my car in for one that used less gas. Nowadays I would talk about the Market for Lemons as a reason against doing what I was thinking of doing. But in 1974 I didn't know about Akerlof's famous paper, and neither did Mike, who was […]
Milk is mind-bogglingly cheap.
The Canadian Cook Book was first published in 1923. My copy is the twentieth edition, published in 1949. It dates from the heyday of home economics, a time when scientific principles were being applied to domestic life. Recipes are mixed in with nutritional information, guidance on the finer points of etiquette, and what we could […]
Economists making spectacularly bad forecasts, 1961 edition.
Back in the 1960s, the Ontario government's Department of Economics dutifully cranked out annual population forecasts. What is remarkable about these forecasts is how far wrong they were. The economists completely failed to predict the demographic changes that were about to hit Ontario. Here are the 1961 projections side by side with the actual 1976 population […]
The Mary Tyler Moore Effect
In 1970, every Justice on the Supreme Court of Canada was male. Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau had an all-male cabinet. Canada had never had a female premier – or even a female television newsreader. Little girls across the country were starting to feel the faint stirrings of ambition, often encouraged by mothers who wanted […]
Will legalization reduce youth marijuana use?
Rates of teen marijuana use in Canada are among the highest in the world. Legalization advocates blame high use on criminalization: "the ready availability from dealers with no scruples about targeting youth, and the cachet of forbidden fruit—or rather, buds." Indeed, the first objective of the Canadian federal government's marijuana legalization agenda is to "Protect young Canadians by […]
Help! The senior guy in my field acts like a total jerk sometimes. What should I do?
I wrote myself a letter, and answered it: Dear WCI, The senior guy in my field acts like a total jerk sometimes. He's working in an area I care deeply about – gender and taxation. But he trivializes and sensationalizes critically important issues. For example, I just heard him give a talk about the optimal tax treatment of […]
A Grave Problem
Ontario has no eerie, overgrown church graveyards. There are no dangerously angled tombstones, no grave markers obscured by rambling vines, nor ancient trees with branches sweeping the ground. In Ontario, cemetery operators are required to maintain graveyards properly. There must be an accessible entrance. Grave markers must be stabilized. Section 29 of the Funeral, Burial and Cremation […]
Another Foray into Data: New Macro-Financial Data
I think Stephen Gordon's Project Link and its piecing together of fragments of Statistics Canada data is a solid step in the right direction. If our national statistical agency is not going to provide long-term consistent data series, then I suppose its up to the researchers to lead the way. Another case in point is […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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