Category Frances Woolley
Or perhaps women’s offices actually are colder?
Another day, another article about the gendered impacts of air conditioning. Here's the story: North American offices are air conditioned to a temperature which is, from a female perspective, too cold. Women shiver at their desks; men are just fine. It's a serious environmental issue. When women have office space heaters cranked up in July […]
The Beer IneQuality Index
The conventional Canadian view is that American beer is bad; watery and weak. Yet American breweries produce some of the world's best beers – superb brews coming out of microbreweries across the country. What is striking about the United States is the country's level of inequality – or, to be more precise, the beer quality […]
The Best and Worst Tax Measures of Budget 2015
The 2015 federal budget is intended to be "a balanced budget, low tax plan for jobs, growth and security." US experience shows that low taxes are no guarantee of jobs and growth. In fact, a recent study by the IMF found equality matters more for growth than low taxes. I quote: "lower net inequality is […]
Four practical things journalists could do to improve economics coverage in the media
1. Find better stories. The Canadian media does a pretty good job of covering Statistics Canada and OECD news releases, and think tank reports. Where they lag behind the US is in coverage of academic research. Take, for example, a paper published in Canadian Public Policy last year by Luc Godbout, Yves Trudel and Suzie […]
How (some) Canadian academic economists learned to love the media
The following are notes for a panel discussion with Andrew Coyne, Tavia Grant, Kristina Partsinevelos, Chris Ragan and Chris Waddell, organized together with Stephen Gordon, at the CEA meetings at Ryerson University on Saturday, May 30th. Program information here. Registration info here. Media info here. At the 2007 Canadian Economics Association meetings, there was a […]
Consuming wealth without spending a dime
"It is a great comfort to have you so rich" - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Stripped down to the barest essentials, taxation works like this: taxes owing = tax rate * tax base + lump sum taxes – income guarantees and tax credits. The appropriate tax base, rate and income guarantee are the three fundamental […]
Unbundling the BA
The most useful university courses and degrees are the hardest to get into. For example, most people would benefit from knowing something about accounting. But do universities facilitate the study of accounting? No. Everywhere admission into Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Business Administration programs is restricted. It's the interests of business schools to turn […]
Funding the gerontocracy
This year, the per-vote subsidy once enjoyed by Canadian political parties ends. Parties will have to raise funds entirely through donations. So, who gives? There is a generous federal tax credit for political donations, worth 75 percent of the first $400 donated, 50 percent of the next $350, and 33 percent of remaining donations. The federal tax credit […]
The Children’s Fitness Tax Credit: A Study in (Academic) Incentives
The Children's Fitness Tax Credit gives parents a non-refundable tax credit to recognize the cost of registering children in sports. When the credit was first introduced, its cash value was $77.50 – the amount of the credit ($500) times the basic marginal tax rate (then 15.5%). The popularity of the credit among parents has led […]
Social blah blah blah
I've been asked to write a paper reviewing "social benefits" delivered through the personal income tax system. I have no idea what this means. In economics, "social benefits" refers to the benefit side of a social benefit/cost calculation; the increase in social welfare associated with a particular project or policy. It has little to do […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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