Summary: Harvey Weingarten, President of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, describes learning outcomes as a "game-changer." A report by Richard Shireman argues that setting out learning outcomes has become, in some cases, nothing more than "worthless bean-counting and cataloging." In this extract from the draft version of my CEA Presidential Address, I talk […]
In the wake of the Putin-Trump Helsinki summit, there is much speculation about what was actually said between Putin and Trump behind closed doors and the uncertainty spread throughout the American government about whether agreements had been reached on issues such as Syria and the Ukraine. The subsequent invitation to Putin to visit the White […]
Well, the Disruptor-in-Chief, US President Donald Trump is at it again. At today’s NATO summit he demanded that the members of NATO need to quickly increase their defence spending not only to meet the committed target of 2 percent of GDP but to also double their commitments to 4 percent of GDP. Needless to say, […]
My crappy little Twitter poll isn't conclusive of course, but it mostly agrees with my priors based on anecdotal evidence, so I think it's probably mostly right. I think this points to a problem, in two senses: Finding profs willing and able to teach Intro well is not easy. It's low status (and economists dumping […]
“Two towns stand on the shores of the Lake less than a mile apart. What Lloyd’s is to shipping, or the College of Surgeons to medicine, that they are to the Wheat.” Rudyard Kipling, Letters of Travel Just in time for July 1st, there was a short ceremony and plaque unveiling today at the Western […]
There are two ways to increase your stock of money: 1. increase the flow in; 2. reduce the flow out. There is only one way to increase your stock of any other asset: 1. increase the flow in. (Unless you are a producer of that other asset. Or unless you are a dealer in that […]
The apple producer produces apples. The banana producer produces bananas. The cherry producer produces cherries. Every year they always work exactly the same number of hours and produce exactly the same quantity of fruit. If you define "recessions" as a decline in output and employment, there cannot be a recession in this economy. By assumption. […]
Here are the powerpoint slides (.pdf format) for my CEA Presidential Address "The Political Economy of University Education in Canada": DOWNLOAD WOOLLEY PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SLIDES HERE. The talk will be written up for the November issue of Canadian Journal of Economics, and I'll sketch out some of the main ideas here. Universities do two things. First, […]
I've just updated Project Link, my attempt to piece together the bits and pieces of published Statistics Canada data into a coherent history of the post-war Canadian economy. (The introductory post is here, and a post on the first update is here.) Here are the main elements: Incorporating Statistics Canada's long-awaited publication of its expenditure […]
There is much international preoccupation with debt at the public sector, household and corporate levels and the upward creep in interest rates does apparently keep central bankers – including our own Mr. Poloz – awake at night. Given the problem is an international one, sometimes it is useful to try and get a global perspective […]
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