Category Tax policy
The Balance of the Federation
The Canadian Federation is an institutional arrangement whereby the constituent units are able to both cooperate and compete with jurisdictions that are both separate and coordinate. The debate over the respective roles of the federal and provincial governments has taken various forms over time with views that emphasize the centrality of the federal government along […]
Are Panic and Posturing Good Ways to Reduce the Deficit?
The Ontario government’s final approach to deficit reduction has begun with selected leaks of economist Don Drummond’s “first draft” of his review via media interviews designed to combine deficit reduction with high drama. A column by Martin Regg Cohn of the Toronto Star titled “Brace for a firestorm across Ontario” outlines cuts as high as […]
The concrete impacts of taxes
Between 1695 and 1851, the English government levied a tax on windows. The window tax was relatively easy to administer. A person's tax liability could be calculated by counting their windows. It had progressive elements. People with higher incomes had larger houses, and more windows, thus paid more in taxes. Houses with fewer than 10 (later […]
Does Dwight Duncan Believe in Magic?
Ontario is Canada’s largest province and befitting its status as the Queen of Confederation, now has the largest provincial debt and deficit in the country. In dealing with the provincial fiscal situation, much rests on the program spending review being conducted by economist Don Drummond. Due to be delivered by the end of January, it […]
Debt is too a burden on our children (unless you believe in Ricardian Equivalence)
So, I was out there shovelling snow, thinking about writing a post on the burden of the debt on future generations. And about how macroeconomists' beliefs on this question had silently shifted about 30 years ago, and about how we as a profession have engaged in a sort of "memory falsification" (like Timur Kuran's concept […]
Rendering More Unto Caesar
Given that the Christmas season is associated with giving, rendering unto Caesar is a suitable blog topic even if it is compulsory rather than voluntary giving.
Some identification problems in the debate on taxing top earners
Two recent papers on top-earner taxation have made an important contribution to the policy debate on the topic, but it seems to me that we still have some way to go before we have an understanding of the phenomenon that is robust enough to use as a basis for policy.
Politics and Taxes
I wanted to weigh in on Stephen Gordon’s post on the Ontario HST reduction but found my entry in the comment box growing so here is a post instead. Why are the Conservatives and more to the point the NDP supporting what seems like a redistribution to higher incomes? Well, I think it comes down […]
General Gluts, Secular Stagnation and the World Economy
The head of the International Monetary Fund warned today on her visit to Beijing that the global economy faces the risk of a "lost decade" with little or no growth and that without action, the world faces worsening financial instability and a possible collapse of demand. This news item also coincided with my morning lecture […]
Appeasing anti-tax sentiment
Alex Himelfarb has an opinion piece in today's Globe and Mail on the 'anti-tax' sentiment that has grown to play such a dominant role in Canadian politics. Although I agree with his diagnosis, his prescriptions are not so much a plan for countering anti-tax sentiment as they are a symptom of its hold on public […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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