Category Productivity
We Are Not Alone…
One more bit of quick evidence on manufacturing and its share of GDP – this time, international evidence. I found some data from the United Nations for the period 1970 to 2010 and calculated the manufacturing to GDP ratios for Canada, the other six G-7 countries as well as Brazil, China, India, Australia and also […]
The Decline of Manufacturing in Canada – 1926-2011: Dutch Disease?
The debate about “Dutch Disease” is focused on the relationship between natural resource export booms, currency appreciation and the decline of Canadian manufacturing. I decided it was worth hunting up some long-term data on manufacturing’s share of Canada's economy given that my economic history background tells me that over the long-term, the share of the […]
Ontario and its Physicians: Richer Than They Think No Longer
Ontario’s health minister Deb Matthews is moving into a major battle with the physicians in the process of trying to get health care costs under control as part of the provincial deficit fighting agenda. Deb Matthews has on a number of occasions remarked that Ontario’s physicians are the best paid in the country.
What is a University President Worth?
Along with the Canada geese returning home and the melting snow revealing buds of green growth, another sign of spring in Ontario is the unveiling of the sunshine list – those individuals in the Ontario public sector and broader public sector earning $100,000 or more. Included as always on the 2012 list are university salaries […]
The efficiency case for nepotism
A firm wanting to invest in a worker, to train her and give her valuable skills, runs a risk: what if she leaves, and takes her valuable human capital elsewhere? A firm can induce its employees to stay through deferred compensation. It pays new employees less than their productivity merits, and senior employees more. The […]
Canada’s Evolving Investment-Output Ratio
A phone discussion with a reporter this week on trends in Canadian investment and capital formation piqued my curiosity as to what the long-term trends in Canadian gross fixed capital formation have been. Apparently, despite the global financial crisis and associated economic uncertainty, business investment and capital formation is still relatively strong at the moment […]
The Euro, “less competitive countries”, and the neutrality of money
I'm not a great defender of the Euro. I think it was a mistake. But there's one argument against the Euro that I'm not happy with. It goes something like this: "Some of the Eurozone countries are just permanently less productive than others. The less productive countries just can't compete if they all share a […]
Why Canadian economists should worry less about productivity
Canada's famously low levels of productivity and low rates of productivity growth have preoccupied Canadian economists for decades. But increased productivity – as it is usually measured – is not a sufficient condition for higher standards of living. It's not even necessary. For instance, the post-2001 fall in Canadian productivity is simply a mathematical artifact […]
Population aging and labour’s share of income
There aren't many statistical regularities in macroeconomics, and very few of them are as important as the apparent long-term stability of the shares of income that go to capital and labour. This 'stylized fact' was first noted by Nicholas Kaldor back in 1957, and his list of stylized facts shows up in every macroeconomics sequence. […]
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.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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