Category Livio Di Matteo
So What Happens in the Next Recession?
I’m not a macro economist by any stretch of the imagination and yet I cannot help wondering what is going to happen in terms of policy response the next time Canada goes into a downturn. It is not a question of whether there will be another recession, only when. By policy response, I am of […]
Provincial Government Health Spending: The Force Awakens?
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) recently released its 2017 edition of its National Health Expenditure Trends and its worth a trip to its website for the downloadable data on all things related to health spending. I've been on an advisory group to the CIHI with respect to its national health expenditures for a […]
Health Spending and System Characteristics in Canada and Spain
I gave a talk at Memorial University in Newfoundland & Labrador last week sponsored by the Department of Economics and the Collaborative Allied Research in Economics Initiative (CARE). My talk was based on joint research currently underway with David Cantarero Prieto at the University of Cantabria in Spain comparing the determinants of government health spending […]
Looking for a University President
“Some people think that a college president’s life is full of joys and a host of friends. I know that he frequently walks in sorrow and alone because of the times he must do what seems impossible.” Paul V. Sangren (1948) “What a President Learns” Journal of Higher Education, 19, 6, 287-288. Well, my university […]
Balancing Ontario’s Budget…In 1875
We often long for simpler times and search for them in our not so distant past. As an economist that does public finance and economic history, the public accounts of the past can offer me an interesting diversion. Governments, at any time in history always take in revenues and make payments and the budgets and […]
Understanding Softwood Lumber: Another View
As we move into the latest iteration of the ongoing softwood lumber dispute with the United States, I thought it might be useful to look at some data to see if any additional insight can be gained. The conventional wisdom on the story is that the disagreements have been over the way the two countries […]
150 Years of Federal Consumption Taxation
In the run up to Canada Day and the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, here is another in a line of recent snapshots of the federal government – this time its consumption tax revenues. Why consumption taxes? Well, economists like to make the case for more emphasis on consumption taxation relative to income taxes, which […]
150 Years of Canadian National Defence Spending
Canada’s federal government is going to deliver a new defence policy that is expected to guide Canada’s military for the next generation. While in the works for months, it comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s recent exhortation at the NATO meetings that NATO members are not spending enough and Tuesday’s speech by Minister […]
Remembering Peter George
Peter James George (1941-2017) died at home April 27th after a short illness. His passing leaves a remarkable legacy as an economic historian and academic leader. Peter grew up in the Toronto Islands, graduated from the University of Toronto, took up a faculty position in the Economics Department at McMaster University in 1965 and served […]
A Very Brief History of Federal Cash Transfers: Canada 1867 to 2017
This is a post in celebration of Canada’s 150th and similar in time span to my previous one on housing supply and dwelling starts. Canada is a federation and a key feature of its operation is a system of intergovernmental transfers between its fiscal tiers. Indeed, transfers and regional equity are enshrined in Section 36 […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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