Category Frances Woolley
Why have double rooms in residence?
One of the little known differences between Canada and the U.K. is the design of university residence rooms. Rooms in British university residences are usually singles. Canadian universities typically have a mix, including a good number of double rooms, with the percentage of doubles varying from campus to campus. Students, typically, prefer singles to doubles. […]
The behavioural economist’s dilemma: induction versus deduction
This summer I went to a conference for behavioural economists and economic psychologists. The presentations were entertaining. Did you know that when coffee is given a fair trade label, people say it tastes better, even if it's just regular coffee? And fair trade coffee, without the fair trade label, doesn't taste as good?* Did you […]
The case for stealth taxation
According to Rosen et al's widely used public finance textbook: “…it is generally agreed that visible taxes are preferable to hidden taxes…." It is, in some ways, a strange assertion. The standard economic analysis of taxation assumes that taxes' superficial aspects – things like who is legally responsible for collecting the tax – are largely […]
An academic integrity policy for faculty?
Carleton University has a 14 page academic integrity policy governing student conduct. It describes in detail the various types of unacceptable behaviour, the process for investigating allegations of misconduct, and the various consequences a student might face. There is no parallel policy for faculty. Perhaps that's because no such policy is necessary. After all, faculty […]
Are faith and health care substitutes?
"Every single 1st world nation that is irreligious shares a set of distinctive attributes. These include handgun control, anti-corporal punishment and anti-bullying policies, rehabilitative rather than punitive incarceration, intensive sex education that emphasizes condom use, reduced socio-economic disparity via tax and welfare systems combined with comprehensive health care…" Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman. People in […]
The more things change…
A cartoon by Low on the 1932 banking crisis (HT Luke Ashworth):
The Economic Journal of Negative Research Findings
There are inevitably times in the career of any academic when an original hypothesis is not supported by subsequent research findings. In the past this has often meant that such findings went unpublished and did not therefore contribute either to personal advancement or departmental research rankings. All that has now changed. The European Journal of […]
Does the equity premium still exist? And, if not, so what?
Allegedly, stocks generate, on average, higher real returns than bonds, that is, there is an equity premium. The equity premium can be observed over certain time periods. For example, during the 1950s stocks outperformed bonds by 19 percent. But I've never understood why there should be a large premium on equities.
Turning an interesting topic into a research hypothesis
On a recent visit to a small Bulgarian town, I was struck by the gardens. There were no lawns or hostas. Instead every inch of every garden was planted with fruit and vegetables. To me, this is an interesting topic. Why are Bulgarians so much more prone to vegetable gardening than Canadians? Yet how can […]
The exogeneity-plausibility trade-off
Back in the day, economists would run a regression explaining earnings in terms of education, experience, and other variables, and then go home at night feeling they had accomplished something. But nowadays it takes a few clicks to download data from the university library, and anyone who can type "regress earnings education experience" into a […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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