Category Frances Woolley
Gender-Based Analysis: A Guide for Economists
GBA+ [Gender-Based Analysis plus] is an analytical tool used to assess the potential impacts of policies, programs, services, and other initiatives on diverse groups of women and men, taking into account gender and other identity factors. The "plus" in the name highlights that GBA+ goes beyond gender, and includes the examination of a range of other […]
What is Employment Insurance For?
If Canada's Employment Insurance program was designed solely to insure workers against the loss of employment, it would look very different. For one thing, the premiums that employees and employers contribute would go towards paying benefits to people who have lost their jobs. But in 2013/14 – the most recent year for which I can find data – […]
How Vancouver Escaped the Freeway Curse
In the 1950s, Vancouver began to feel the pain of traffic congestion. The travel time contour map below, taken from the 1958 study Freeways With Rapid Transit, shows how bad it was. In rush hour it took a 15 minutes or less to get from corner of Georgia and Granville to anywhere in the dark green area – […]
Economics can’t be encapsulated into knowledge pills. And that matters for research funding.
Antibiotics – when they work – are miraculous. A patient does not have to understand what antibiotics are, or why antibiotics are effective. All that is required is for someone somewhere in the world to create an effective antibiotic and put it into a pill. Then it can be shipped to someone with a bacterial infection, and the patient […]
Who chooses to become Canadian?
Immigrants to Canada can, after living here for four years as a permanent resident, opt to become naturalized Canadian citizens. Most immigrants opt for naturalization – but some cling to their original citizenship, even after living in this country for thirty, forty, fifty or more years. The graph below shows the proportion of immigrants choosing to become […]
Can universities persuade professors to act like employees? Should they even try?
As university employees, professors have a fiduciary obligation to act in their employer's best interests. The number one interest of a university is financial survival, and the key to survival is reputation, because reputation attracts students, faculty, and donors. A university's reputation, to the extent that it is at all malleable, can be enhanced by serving students […]
Is alcohol as harmful as tobacco?
In "Phishing for Phools", George Akerlof and Robert Shiller suggest that: …the harms of alcohol could be comparable to the harms of cigarettes, affecting not just 3 or 4 percent of the population, as a chronic life-downer, but, rather, affecting 15 to 30 percent; the higher number especially if we also include the alcoholics' most […]
Is it time to kill the traditional student presentation?
The traditional student presentation format – ten minutes of powerpoint, two minutes of questions – rarely works well. After three or four presentations, a good chunk of the audience zones out. Getting a good discussion going is hard – and there isn't time for an extended conversation anyways. Then there are the logistical challenges – […]
Toasted Pumpkin Seeds or, Waste is a Value Judgement
Today, hundreds of thousands of pumpkin carvers will simply discard their pumpkin's seeds. I believe tossing out pumpkin seeds is a terrible waste. Pumpkin seeds, roasted with salt and butter, are a delicious and nutritious snack. And they aren't difficult to make: separate out the pumpkin seeds, wash them well with water, dry on paper […]
Is it ethical to sell complimentary copies of textbooks?
Faculty Books Recycling is a company that takes the complimentary copies of textbooks that publishers send professors, resells those comp copies to students, and makes a profit on the transaction. Faculty Books does everything possible to make professors feel that selling – or giving away – comp copies is an ethical thing to do. In […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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