Category Fiscal policy
The burden of the (bad monetary policy) on future generations
You can try to kill zombie ideas. Or you can try to reframe them. I'm fed up with killing the "The national debt is not a burden on future generations because they will inherit (sic) the bonds as well as the debt so they will owe it to themselves" zombie. I already killed it a […]
Winter is Coming…
Well, here are some depressing statistics from Banca D’Italia’s recent release on Italy’s economy.
Forecasting Deficits Ontario Style
One of my most piercing electoral memories is the 1993 federal election debate that featured then Prime Minister Kim Campbell, Jean Chretien, Audrey McLaughlin, Preston Manning and Lucien Bouchard. The part that always sticks in my mind is Lucien Bouchard’s persistent questioning of Campbell with respect to the size of the deficit in the 1993 […]
Why is Ontario’s Government Being So Mean to Its Teachers?
Being in Toronto for the Rimini Conference in Economics and Finance 2012 and standing in the shadow of Queen’s Park has led me to contemplate why the Ontario government is suddenly being so mean to its teachers. After years of Dalton McGuinty as the education premier with an expansion of education funding and programs, the […]
Why are (almost all) economists unaware of Milton Friedman’s thermostat?
I know I'm right in saying that Milton Friedman's thermostat is an important idea that all economists ought to be aware of. And I'm pretty sure I'm right in asserting that almost all economists are unaware of this important idea. Am I wrong? Are you aware of this idea? Maybe under some other name?? Google […]
Unit roots and pro-cyclical fiscal policy
This is something I have long wondered about. And reading Jeff Frankel's complaints (HT Mark Thoma) about pro-cyclical fiscal policy made me wonder about it again. And I do mean "wonder about". I am not at all sure that this idea is right, or even theoretically coherent. But I wonder if it might be. In […]
Trill Perpetuities, and dynamic inefficiency under uncertainty
A trill perpetuity is a bond, which promises to pay the owner a one trillionth share of nominal GDP (that's the "trill" bit), every year forever (that's the "perpetuity" bit). Trills, AFAIK, do not exist, though economists have thought about them. Perpetuities do exist (but are rare). Trill perpetuities do not exist. But they are […]
Things I think about and worry about but don’t blog about
I mean macroeconomic things, not just cars and canoeing and stuff. This is another "selection bias in blogging" post. Probably a more important selection bias than the one I talked about in my previous post. If you thought that my blog posts are about all the things in macroeconomics I think are important, you would […]
Strategy space and the theory of monetary policy Two
Industrial Organisation economists have known since 1883 that strategy space matters. To say the same thing another way, Industrial Organisation economists have believed in fairies ever since 1883, when a French mathematician proved the existence of fairies in oligopoly theory. Industrial Organisation economists, at least by stereotype, tend to be very practical down-to-earth people, quite […]
The Canadian fiscal union: lessons for the eurozone?
Paul Krugman noted a few days ago that [A]s far as underlying economic inequalities are concerned, the EZ is no worse than the US. The difference, mainly, is that we think of ourselves as a nation, and blithely accept fiscal measures that routinely transfer large sums to the poorer states S.C. at The Economist's Free […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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