Category Stephen Gordon
Trends in job tenure
I've written before on an important and yet not-widely-enough-known feature of the Canadian labour market: the remarkable amount of churn in and out of employment: [1], [2]. Another way of looking at the dynamics in the labour market is job tenure, which the Labour Force Survey measures as the length of time a worker has […]
Book review: Dan Gardner’s “Future Babble”
Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen is one of my very favourite journalists. I first came across his work during the 2008 election campaign, in which he distinguished himself by writing what turned out to be the only article on carbon taxes that made no reference to Stéphane Dion's accent. His piece was a beacon […]
But you try and tell the young people of today that… and they won’t believe ya
I've noticed a couple of recent media stories on the plight of youth ([1],[2]), and I have to say that I've seen worse.
The case against the penny
Mike Moffatt delivers the coup de grâce for the penny in today's Ottawa Citizen. Go read it. Tell your friends to read it. Tell your MP to read it.
Money for nothing, or how the federal government can make an easy $1b
Angelo Melino points us to this page summarising Bank of Canada note liabilities, and notes that … the Bank of Canada has a lot of archaic notes outstanding. In addition to about $12M of notes issued by other entities that it took on as its own liabilities, there are a few small commemorative issues (for […]
Are the rich capitalist? Are capitalists rich?
A short answer to both of these questions is "typically not," and an even shorter answer is "no". A longer answer is below the fold.
The 2010Q3 GDP report: Investing in a silver lining
The third quarter GDP growth rate – 1.3% 1.0% at annual rates – is disappointing even though it wasn't entirely unexpected. But there was one important and encouraging piece of news hidden in the lackluster GDP numbers: fixed business investment has finally started to play a role in the recovery.
The Basic Income: Go big, or go home
I used to blog fairly regularly about the Basic Income (aka Citizen's Income, aka Guaranteed Annual Income), but the passage of a decent interval of time, Kevin Milligan's recent Economy Lab columns ([1] , [2]) and Erin Anderssen's long article in Saturday's Globe and Mail gives me an excuse to revisit the issue and perhaps […]
Oil prices, the Canadian dollar and the kink at parity
The Canadian dollar has been bouncing around parity with the US dollar recently, and the Fed's adoption of another round of quantitative easing plus the relaxing of the Chinese government's tightening policies has people (including me) thinking that USD-denominated commodity prices will rise, and with it the Canadian dollar. But will it? The last time […]
More evidence on minimum wages, employment and poverty
A year ago, I brought attention to a Canadian Public Policy article on poverty and the minimum wage in Ontario. A notable finding of the study was that the overlap between those who earn minimum wage and those who are in poverty was surprisingly small, small enough to conclude – as I did – that […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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