Category Livio Di Matteo
Debt, Default and Leadership
Well I honestly thought the US debt ceiling crisis would be resolved by today given the past examples of American political theater when it comes to fiscal issues. As I write this morning, it seems that the US is heading towards defaulting on some of its debt interest payments. It appears to me that the […]
What’s a Billion?
I have finally been able to catch my breath this week and ponder the situation in Ontario over the report on the final cost of cancelling two natural gas electricity plants in the Oakville-Mississauga area ostensibly in order to retain seats for the Ontario Liberal government given local opposition to the plants. The Ontario auditor […]
Trade, Growth and … Brazil
In a recent address on global growth and Canadian export prospects to the Economic Club of Canada, the Bank of Canada’s Tiff Macklem noted that Canada’s share of world trade has been in decline for over a decade and that the loss of global trade share has been the second highest of the G-20. Given […]
Fiscal Clout and Federation Redesign
The Parliamentary Budget Office has issued a very pleasing report on federal fiscal sustainability but the flip side is that the provinces and territories are now not fiscally sustainable because of their rising health costs and the federal fiscal gap created by the change in the Canada Health Transfer escalator. According to Andrew Coyne, the […]
Shifting Populations, Shifting Economies
Statistics Canada just released its total population estimates for 2013 and the picture shows declining shares of population not just for Quebec and the Atlantic region, but also for parts of the west. While the population share of the western provinces has grown over the period 1983 to 2013, this increase is due to Alberta […]
The Differential Timing of the Great Depression
The Economic History Association meetings currently underway in Washington D.C. have a number of fascinating sessions including several on economic depression and financial crises. One paper by Thilo Albers (Humboldt University Berlin) and Martin Uebele (University of Groningen) is particularly interesting given that it presents a new monthly international dataset for the interwar period (1925-1936) […]
Revolution, Income and Regional Decline: The American Revolution and the First American Great Depression
Using the framework of neoclassical institutional economics, new institutions are innovated if the perceived expected net gains are positive. That is, the benefits from the change should exceed the implementation costs plus the net benefits of the existing institutional arrangement. A primary ingredient of those gains must invariably translate into higher per capita income. As […]
Higher Education Financing Takes Two to Tango
Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates has spent the last week on his blog going through an analysis of the financing of Canadian universities. His final post on the subject today provides a convenient summary showing that while total dollars per student has grown substantially over time, the academic operating side of the university […]
The Historical Constants of Affluence
According to the recently released results of the National Household Survey, the top 1% of Canadians aged 15 and over earn $191,000 a year and tend to be predominantly male, university educated, married, most likely over the age of 45, and live in larger metropolitan centers. It would appear that little has changed since the […]
Population Apocalypse and Apocalyptic Populations
As part of my summer entertainment, I read Dan Brown’s most recent novel – Inferno – which features a bio-terrorism plot involving the release of a virus designed to cause sterility in one-third of the human race in order to control overpopulation. The novel highlights a neo-Malthusian “Population Apocalypse Equation” which argues that the “sustainable […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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