Category Tax policy
The gender politics of taxation
The pressure to cut taxes comes from those who pay relatively more in taxes, and benefit relatively less from government spending. Men, on average, earn more than women. Hence they pay more taxes than women do:
What is the most pressing issue in Canadian tax policy today?
The most pressing issue in Canadian tax policy today is that people don't like paying taxes, and it is increasingly hard to persuade them to do so. The heavy duty engines of tax revenue generation are the personal income tax and the federal and provincial sales taxes. Federally, personal income taxes raise about half of […]
When is helicopter money optimal?
Money is fungible. And things get lost in translation, especially between micro and macro. "Helicopter money" is when the central bank prints money, gives it to the government, and the government gives it to everyone, as a freebie. When is helicopter money optimal?
Flogging a Dead Horse III: The weird response of Benjamin Zycher
This post was written by Mike Veall of the Department of Economics at McMaster University. Sorry, I am still on about the research that was used to formulate the Ontario Progressive Conservative jobs plan. Again I emphasize this is about the underlying econometric research by Benjamin Zycher, Senior Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. It is not […]
Meritocracy, mobility, and optimal taxation
What would a perfect meritocracy look like? Suppose we could all agree on a definition of "merit" as "ability to contribute to the common good". Suppose that each individual was born with a certain quantity of "merit", and that we could observe and measure each individual's "merit" perfectly. It's indelibly stamped on their foreheads. Suppose […]
Should Municipalities in Canada Get More Money?
In the tradition of the fur traders of the Northwest Company, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is holding their board meeting “Rendezvous” at the head of the Great Lakes in Thunder Bay from March 5th to 8th. It was difficult task trying to find an agenda on their website but no doubt they will be […]
Taxation and Growth: A North American Cross-Border Comparison
My last comparison of U.S. states and Canadian provinces with respect to their federal transfer revenue shares got me thinking about the other revenue sources and whether any relationship could be found between economic growth and revenue composition. Income taxation is supposed to have incentive and distortion effects on saving, risk taking and labor supply […]
Two compulsory lotteries
Never reason from an increase in inequality. What the effects of increased inequality are, and whether it's good or bad, will depend on what caused that increased inequality. Inequality is an endogenous variable. So let's think of a government policy that would cause increased inequality, and talk about that. Suppose the government gave every Canadian […]
How much new revenue would be generated by an increase in federal corporate taxes?
I've decided to revisit this post from last year. The background context is the Conservative government's 'starve the beast' agenda – documented by me here and here, by Livio here and by Paul Wells in his excellent new book. The Conservatives have made two significant tax cuts during their time in office. The GST rate was […]
Teaching tariffs vs taxes in a small open economy
I taught my first year students the effects of an import tariff in a small open economy. I used the standard diagram (from Mankiw, Kneebone and McKenzie). It looks like this:
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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