Category Livio Di Matteo
Provincial Revenues: Another View
Well, in response to a comment in my last post asking how much variation in per capita revenues there is across the provinces, I've provided a graph of real per capita revenues (1997 dollars) for each province for the period 1975 to 2008 with the data that was used to compile the average and median […]
Revenue Deficiency, Health Care Sustainability and the Fiscal Dividend
One of the arguments made in the public sector health care sustainability debate is that while the share of national income devoted to public health insurance has grown at a relatively modest rate, the provinces have weakened their resource base with fiscal measures that have reduced their rates of personal and corporate taxation. It has […]
Spending on Public Health Programs: Yet Another National Divide
In 1974, the Lalonde Report titled “A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians” argued that we needed to look beyond traditional health care focused on medicine. If we wished to improve the health of the public, a broad determinants of health approach focused on things like lifestyle choice and behaviour needed to be pursued.
A Strong Dollar?
American economic policy debate has recently taken turns familiar to Canadians – health care sustainability, debts and deficits, and most recently, the value of the dollar.
Cities, Capital Cities and Economic Performance
It is the conventional wisdom that urban centers with their concentrations of human and physical capital and their dense social networks are engines of growth. One exception to this is can be the case where a dominant urban center by virtue of its institutional monopoly on a country or region’s economic life is able to […]
As the Border turns: Cross-Border Shopping Revisited
According to a report in the May 11th edition of the Globe and Mail, the U.S. government is pressing the Canadian federal government to loosen the rules so that fewer Canadians have to stop and pay duties as they return from a trip to the United States: “The personal exemption issue has been formally raised […]
People of Plenty
American historian David Potter’s book People of Plenty argued that resource abundance shaped the American attitude towards possibility and opportunity. Abundant resources set the stage for wealth accumulation and created a society that believes that everyone can become rich through their own work and effort and that initiative and opportunity are the key to social […]
Is Toronto Leading Canada’s Economic Recovery?
Statistics Canada has just released the most recent building permit numbers and they show that municipalities issued building permits worth $6.8 billion in March 2011, a 17.2% increase from February and a level not seen since June 2007. Moreover, the gain was mostly the result of advances in the residential and non-residential sectors in Ontario.
A Short Assessment of Federal Election 2011 Results
With the election over and a Conservative majority government, one can expect to see a continuation of current federal economic policy with respect to lower corporate taxes, targeted spending programs, as well as a more explicit articulation and implementation of a philosophy of smaller government.
An Aging Society: Another View
The debate over the sustainability of public health care has often focused on an aging population as one of the key drivers with apocalyptic scenarios of a silver tsunami of seniors washing over the health care system and bankrupting the system.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments