This more of an argument you hear for a one-time expense such as building new schools or buying new military aircraft, that goes something along the lines of: "We already have a deficit, so this policy will just increase the deficit and we'll pay even more in interest.  But if we wait until we have […]

One common argument against a CIT (corporate income tax) cut is along the lines of "we've already got a deficit and a CIT cut will just make the deficit worse.  Why don't we wait until we've got a surplus before we even consider cutting rates?  Let's wait for the economy to get better, revenues to […]

It's been interesting watching the back and forth between the Conservatives and the Liberals regarding corporate tax rates.    However, I've become frustrated with a question that isn't being asked of the Liberals.

This is a post I've been meaning to write for months, but I couldn't find the words to do so.  Instead I've decided to create a very simple microeconomic model to illustrate my basic point – that since prices are sticky, an unexpectedly rising Canadian dollar can do more damage to an exporter's bottom line […]

And furthermore, would you be willing to make the change if it meant making changes to the water supply?

In an idea shamelessly stolen from Marginal Revolution, here are the top-10 posts on Worthwhile Canadian Initiative as determined by pageviews.  I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t simply 10 posts on the census.  In fact the majority of posts had nothing to do with Canada whatsoever.  There’s something oddly Canadian about that. And […]

In the comments of an earlier post we discussed the difficulty entry-level applicants are having in obtaining jobs.  In this post I discuss 3 changes from the last 12 months making it difficult for workers with low- to no-skills find employment.

From Economy Lab: From great ideas to policy blunders, Economy Lab's experts and analysts look at 12 months of developments in the dismal science Fourteen economists give their picks including Frances, Stephen and I.  Reading over the picks I kept thinking "now why didn't I choose that?!?"  Also, it appears it wasn't a good year […]

Not a week goes by when we read a story in the media on how a high and rising Canadian dollar affects exporters. (See: Get ready for a $1.15 loonie) The story is typically one of transactional exposure – a company has a revenue stream in U.S. dollars and the value of that stream is reduced […]

I met a friend of mine last weekend who holds a regional manager-type position at a bank.  We got to talking about banking and economics (go figure) and she described a particularly interesting problem they were discussing at work: What is the optimal policy to refill an ATM with cash?