Category General
The Real Minimum Wage
I was a bit surprised that the recent upsurge in unemployment in Ontario in June, which was especially concentrated amongst youth (individuals aged 15 to 24 years), did not generate much discussion about the impact of the minimum wage. Ontario’s adult minimum wage rose 75 cents on June 1st to hit 11 dollars per hour. […]
Visualizing the Economy
I will be teaching first year economics this fall for the first time in quite a number of years and I want to provide a more gripping visual presentation of what an economy is. I have the standard set of graphs illustrating the circular flow and the production possibilities frontier in order to provide the […]
The Economic Role of Monarchy
In the wake of the abdication of King Juan Carlos of Spain, the New York Times ran a short piece on monarchies noting that 12 monarchies still survive in Europe with eight of them being liberal democracies – Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Incidentally, these Scandinavian monarchies in particular are […]
Some Miscellaneous Thoughts on the Economics of Social Interaction
Economics is really all about incentives and their effect on behaviour at the micro and macro level. My training in economics emphasized the role of prices in communicating information about scarcity and opportunity cost and providing the incentives that affect economic behaviour. Yet, all of our economic behaviour is also rooted on an institutional framework […]
Gary Becker: The Father of Economics Imperialism
This was written by the University of Toronto's Aloysius Siow: Gary Becker, an American economist, died on May 3 at the age of 83. His major contribution was the systematic application of economics to the analysis of social issues. Before his work, economists primarily studied how markets and market economies worked. He used economics to study […]
Exchange Rates and Gasoline Prices?
Well the price of gasoline just spiked upwards across Canada and the usual media analysis has begun. Five key reasons were summarized as follows by Shawn McCarthy in the Globe and Mail: 1) Approach of the summer driving season leading to a switch to summer gas formulations which leads to a reduction in supply. 2) […]
Police, Crime and the Great Canadian Crime Drop
It would appear fiscal restraint has finally caught up with police services across the country. The recent release of Police Resources in Canada, 2013 by Statistics Canada documents a decline in police strength after nearly a decade of increases as well as a slowdown in per capita spending. The crime rate, however continues to fall.
Economic Inequality, Saving and Economic Growth
“It is generally recognized that more saving takes place in communities in which the distribution of wealth is uneven than in those in which it approaches more closely to modern conceptions of what is just.” T.S. Ashton (1948) The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830, p. 7. I came across this quote while reading Ashton’s account of the […]
Fleet, GDP and 1914
This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I and my attention this week was drawn to a copy of J. Griffin and Company’s The Naval Annual 1913. It is a sweeping 520-page review of the state of the world’s navies with details on individual ships. The naval arms race […]
Disaster Compensation
In the wake of the recent ice storm that hit southern Ontario and Toronto particularly hard, the Ontario government decided to provide compensation to those who saw their food spoiled because of the prolonged power outage. Provincial money along with donations from the private sector was used to provide grocery gift cards in Toronto at […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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