Category General
The Canadian Wheat Board: Won’t anybody think of the consumers?
The Canadian Wheat Board – a cartel for Canadian wheat producers – is experiencing the sort of troubles that all cartels have to deal with at some point or another: some of its members believe that they could do better on their own. We’ve all seen this story before, but a distinguishing feature of this […]
How a not-completely-stupid idea became a multi-billion-dollar policy mistake
Another step in the long, slow, agonising death of a white elephant: the federal government is selling land it had expropriated for the Mirabel airport back to its original owners. If you have the benefit of thirty years’ worth of hindsight, the Mirabel airport is a pretty easy project to mock: it made many of […]
How much should politicians be paid? And who should pay them?
The proposal to increase Ontario MPP’s pay has elicited the usual flurry of indignation: "It’s remarkable that they would have the chutzpah, the nerve, I mean gonads the size of a canal horse, to introduce legislation like this…" Whenever politicians try to vote themselves a pay increase, a certain amount of scepticism is warranted. But […]
2% of the population owns 50% of a very, very poor proxy for economic welfare
From a study that has generated some headlines: The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth according to a path-breaking study released today by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER). The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken […]
How to present a paper (or act as a discussant)
Good advice from Carleton University’s Nick Rowe: Every time I go to the [Canadian Economics Association] meetings I get disappointed at how poorly many of the papers are presented. At the risk of offending someone, I want to give some advice on how best to present a paper (or act as discussant): Presenters should concentrate […]
The Intelligent Design theory of economics
Mark Thoma at Economist’s View has been wading through what non-economists think of economics, and he’s finding the exercise somewhat frustrating. For someone who hasn’t had formal training in the field, anti-economics is often more persuasive than the real thing. Paul Krugman ran into this particular brick wall a few years ago, and realised that […]
Ban the penny. And the nickel, while we’re at it
There’s a debate at the WSJ online about the pros and cons to keeping the penny. My view is that we should toss the penny and the nickel altogether. The reason is simple: today’s dime has the buying power of a penny circa 1946 in both Canada and the US. I defy you to go […]
When the minimum wage bites
The ‘old minimum wage research’ – summarised here – found that the effect of an increase in the minimum wage on employment was significant. The ‘new minimum wage research’ – à la Card and Krueger – found that the effect was not significant. When the idea of increasing the Quebec minimum wage to 10$/hr was […]
Flawed discounting of the Stern report
Max Wilkinson has a go in the Financial Times, complete with an over-the-top headline: Stern’s report is based on flawed figures. The issue is Stern’s choice of using a discount rate of 2-3% a year to discount the future costs of global warming: [T]he actual figure used by Sir Nicholas seems to have been between […]
The NDP and the minimum wage
The Ontario NDP has introduced a private member’s bill to increase the Ontario minimum wage from $7.75/hr to $10.00/hr, and its cousins in Ottawa have proposed a $10/hr minimum wage for workers under federal jurisdiction. The question is: why? We know that the link between those who earn the minimum wage and those who are […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments