Category Livio Di Matteo
Is Ottawa Shortchanging Ontario? You Decide.
Well it is federal budget time once again and the inevitable political opera around transfer payments is in progress. This time, Ontario is feeling shortchanged and wants Ottawa to restore the 641 million dollar cut in transfer payments it is slated to receive for the 2014-15 fiscal year. Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa argues that […]
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 […]
A Lower Dollar Won’t Reverse Manufacturing’s Decline
The decline in the value of the Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar is expected to provide a boost to the manufacturing sector. There is certainly no shortage of commentary on whether the fall in the dollar is the result of economic fundamentals or an engineered conspiracy designed to boost Conservative re-election prospects in […]
Foreign Remittances, Immigration and Economic Development
In Europe, immigrants from developing countries come in to work and then often send back money to families. There are also alot of foreign workers in the higher income countries in Asia and the Middle East. According to a World Bank Report, the developing world is expected to receive $414 billion in migrant remittances in […]
One Million Jobs
Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has promised to create one million jobs over eight years and plans to introduce his Million Jobs Act Bill in the Ontario Legislature when it resumes sitting on February 18th. Tim Hudak is presenting a five-point plan in his private member’s bill to create jobs that includes among other things […]
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 […]
When Will Low Interest Rates End?
A recent piece in the Financial Post titled “How many times can economists cry wolf about interest rates” caught my interest because I – like many economists in Canada – have been expecting interest rates to eventually start to rise and yet they do not. So when will Canadian interest rates start to go up? […]
Canadian Housing Prices: Some More Data to Ponder
Well, given the continuing pronouncements that Canada’s housing market is overvalued, I thought I would follow up my November post with another take on the data. Among the many suggestions received on that post was to extend the data back further and to look at price/rent ratios. This time, I decided to gather CMHC data […]
Living Longer…and Longer….
The OECD Health Data 2013 final update numbers are out and for the first time average life expectancy at birth in the OECD countries (numbers for 2011) exceeds 80 years at 80.1. This represents a gain of ten years since 1970. When life expectancy for men and women at age 65 is examined, there are […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments