Category Livio Di Matteo
Economics of the Apocalypse
Well December 21st is almost upon us and with it the end of the Mayan calendar cycle and the anticipated arrival of the end of the world or the end of the world as we know it. Well, what do the economic indicators tell us about how this fundamental shift may be accounted for by […]
Chalk Up Another for the Economics of Google Searches
The Google search engine continues to demonstrate its use as a tool for predicting human behaviour and activity based on the frequency of topics searched by its users. Google data has been used to track flu activity and even fertility behaviour. A Banca D’Italia November 2012 working paper by Francesco D’Amuri and Juri Marcucci is […]
Canadian Exceptionalism in Compensation
The Parliamentary Budget Office's most recent release "The Fiscal Impact of Federal Personnel Expenses: Trends and Developments" provides some interesting statistics on the amounts of employee compensation paid by Canada’s federal government. According to the report: “in 2011-12, Canada’s federal personnel expenses were $43.8 B, or 2.55 per cent of GDP. These expenses supported a […]
Measuring Universities: Once More Unto the Breach
Making change sometimes involves an elaborate public discourse and preparation of affected stakeholders and in Ontario the discourse is towards getting people in the public sector to do more with less. The latest target was drawn to my attention by Alex Usher’s Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA) morning bulletin, which featured the preliminary report by […]
As the World Turns
Several posts ago, I presented some numbers by Angus Maddison on the evolution of global GDP output shares over the period 1500 to 2001 which showed that Asia’s share of world GDP declined from 1500 to about the mid 20th century but has since been rising. I decided to try and do a bit of […]
Resource Revenue Retention: New Twists on an Old Idea?
In a post on iPolitics, author and journalist Madelaine Drohan discusses the move by the PQ government in Quebec to embrace the Generations Fund – a sovereign wealth fund created by the Liberal government of Jean Charest in 2006. The original plan was to invest water power and mining royalties into a fund whose income […]
Carney’s Departure: The Bigger Picture
Well, it has been an exciting couple of days in Canada on the policy side given the juxtaposition of the following news: 1) the federal by-election results suggest a more competitive political environment for the federal Conservatives in the stronghold of Alberta 2) the world-class City of Toronto is deposing its Mayor over a conflict […]
Why Harper is Not Going to Halifax
The provincial premiers are meeting on the economy in Halifax today and tomorrow and Prime Minister Harper will not be joining them. Several of them have offered up expressions of surprise and disappointment and have lamented the absence of the Prime Minister. The operatic drama that often characterizes exchanges at federal-provincial meetings has been absent […]
Growing Ontario One Report at a Time
The Conference Board of Canada has chimed in on what ails Ontario and how to get it moving in a recently released report titled Needed: A Comprehensive Growth Strategy for Ontario. The report argues that after rebounding from the 2008-09 recession, Ontario has slipped into tepid growth of around 2 percent annually and needs a […]
We Will Bury You…Eventually?
Few probably recall (I was not even born yet) the November 18, 1956 Western ambassadors reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow where the then Soviet First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Krushchev supposedly uttered the famous quote: “We will bury you.” The actual line apparently was apparently something to the effect of “Whether […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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