Category Livio Di Matteo
Are More Physicians Preferred to Less?
Physician spending has been highlighted as one of the fastest growing expenditure categories in Canadian health care spending. The increase in supply of physicians, rising fees and the increasing utilization of health care per capita are recognized as important and intertwined factors driving expenditure for physician services. Despite perceptions of a shortage of physicians, the […]
Promoting Consumption Taxation in Canada
Consumption taxation is making the news again in Canada. Manitoba’s PST hike to 8 percent that was announced in April’s provincial budget kicked in on July 1st. At the public hearings into the increases and in the media, the increase has received a lot of criticism despite the claim the increase will be temporary and […]
The National Dream’s Economic Legacy
The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1885 was more than an impressive engineering achievement; it was also a significant joint economic undertaking by the public and the private sectors and a key ingredient in Canadian nation building as it provided the east-west transport corridor that made the Canadian west an investment frontier. […]
Animal Spirits?
I suppose it is a little early for news stories that characterize the dog days of summer but a recent CBC item on Prairie Dogs certainly caught my attention. Prairie dogs are social animals that live in cooperative groups and apparently they have relatively sophisticated language. According to the story, via their chirps they are […]
Explaining the Health Spending Slowdown
Canadian Institute for Health Information numbers show that there is a moderation in health expenditure growth underway. From a growth rate of 6.1 percent in 2010, the CIHI estimates growth in total nominal health spending of 3.9 percent in 2011 and 3.4 percent in 2012. Over the same period, the health expenditure to GDP ratio […]
Fiscal Death Watchlist
I found Nick Rowe’s post Is Japan Already Dead quite inspiring so I decided to dig up the most current IMF World Economic Outlook Database for numbers on net debt to GDP ratios. Japan – which may already be dead – has a net debt to GDP ratio in 2012 of 134 percent. An estimate […]
Fiscal Equity, Taxes and GTHA Transit
Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has shot down Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s proposal that the 34 billion dollar Metrolinx Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) transit expansion plan could be funded by a special regional increase in the provincial portion of the HST. For this to happen, Ottawa would have to agree to Ontario’s request […]
The Challenges of Mark Carney’s European “Mission Civilisatrice”
In his farewell address to Canada before assuming the reins of the Bank of England, Mark Carney argues that Canada works because of the strength of the Canadian federation when it comes to its institutional framework and its four critical advantages of responsible fiscal policy, sound monetary policy, a single and resilient financial system and […]
The Interest Rate Time Bomb
The recent policy debate over whether its time for interest rates to start to rise after being at the lowest levels since the Great Depression for nearly five years shows just how much of a policy box governments are in when it comes to fiscal and monetary policy. Never mind the debate over whether there […]
Three Short Observations on the Economics of Waterways
The Rhine River is the heart of significant economic activity as a European transport and commercial corridor. Running 1,233 km from the Alps to the North Sea, its rich economic hinterland generates commercial traffic, which made it attractive as a source of revenue for regional lords and masters for centuries. Hence, the numerous castles, which […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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