Tag Archives: canada
Is the Dreaded Double Dip Near?
Statistics Canada has released the Canadian economic accounts with GDP estimates for the second quarter of 2011. Overall, real gross domestic product or GDP declined by 0.1 percent in the second quarter following a 0.9 percent increase in the previous quarter.
British Tuition Hikes: A Canadian Opportunity?
Last Thursday, about 300,000 British secondary school students (England, Wales & Northern Ireland) received their A-level results, which are a key determinant of whether or not they will receive a place at a university of their choice. This year, the number of applicants to British universities was about 684,000 but the number of spaces was […]
Forecasting the Future
I've always been a fan of science fiction and the other day came across an old anthology of Canadian science fiction on my downstairs shelf that contains a copy of a pamphlet written in 1883 forecasting what Canada was supposed to be like in 1983. The actual author is apparently unknown but wrote the pamphlet […]
Wealth and Its Distribution: Tomorrow is Yesterday
Wealth and income inequality is a big issue and I thought some historical perspective on wealth inequality might be interesting given that my research to date has led me to conclude that little has changed for the bottom of the wealth distribution at least in terms of relative wealth shares. While there has been the […]
Health Outcomes & Health Financing: An Example
I finally got around to looking at the OECD Health Data release for 2011 and as is my habit, I spend some time looking at the overview reports and charts as well as playing around with some of the data. The first chart provided by the OECD that I want to draw your attention to […]
Is There a Hauser’s Law for Canada Too?
Economics has a number of “Laws” floating around that are rooted in empirical observation and then put forth as natural inexorable systemic laws. For example, in public finance, there is Wagner’s Law of Expanding State Activity, which links the size of the public sector to income. In health economics, there is Roemer’s Law, which […]
Ontario’s Recession Battered Families
Recessions generate many statistics but in the end its all about the people and their families. Statistics Canada today released family income data for sub-provincial areas for 2009 taken from the 2009 personal income tax returns.
Provincial Revenues: Another View
Well, in response to a comment in my last post asking how much variation in per capita revenues there is across the provinces, I've provided a graph of real per capita revenues (1997 dollars) for each province for the period 1975 to 2008 with the data that was used to compile the average and median […]
Spending on Public Health Programs: Yet Another National Divide
In 1974, the Lalonde Report titled “A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians” argued that we needed to look beyond traditional health care focused on medicine. If we wished to improve the health of the public, a broad determinants of health approach focused on things like lifestyle choice and behaviour needed to be pursued.
The echoes of internment
The internment of Japanese-Canadians during the second World War was one of the less noble points in Canadian history. But this post is not about guilt or shame. Economists are increasingly aware that history matters. A recent survey by the Harvard-based Canadian economist Nathan Nunn describes how decisions made centuries ago – for example, the types of […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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