The Macro-Economics of Financing Employment Insurance
The federal government has launched consultations on EI premium setting. This provides the opportunity to shift from a very ad hoc system to one that is more fair to workers,…
Andrew Jackson
Outlook Darkens as Budget Debate Begins
Allow me to indulge myself just this once. Almost exactly one month ago I wrote a post arguing that the Bank of Canada was being too optimistic about our economic…
On Balancing the Budget
Andrew Watt has written an especially cogent piece on why the balanced budget rule proposed for the Euro area by Merkel and Sarkozy is a very, very bad idea. It…
Market Mayhem
The wild swings in the North American financial markets this week serve as yet another reminder of the weakness of any linkage between levels and changes in financial asset values…
Stimulus vs Public Investment
A column by Stiglitz in the Financial Times makes what I think is an important point. The current debate over fiscal policy for the US, Europe and Canada is often…
The New Phase of the Crisis
The Great Recession was followed by an anaemic recovery in the advanced economies, which threatens to be followed by a double dip or worse now that the fiscal stimulus measures…
Social Europe Journal
For those of you out there who have not seen it, I recommend Social Europe Journal. There is a lot of good progressive economic commentary by leading European economists and…
More on Public Sector Austerity in Canada
A short addendum to my previous post: I checked the most recent IMF projections in the June, 2011 Update to the Fiscal Monitor. Table 1 provides estimates of changes in…
Today’s Job Numbers
Analysis from my colleague Sylvain Schetagne: A decreasing unemployment rate is not always a sign of a strong labour market. The decrease in the unemployment rate from 7.4% to 7.2%…
Public Sector Austerity: Why is Canada Leading the Way?
The major economic problem faced by Canadians is a very slow recovery and weak job market, not government deficits or rising debt. But public spending cuts at the federal and…
The Myth of Expansionary Austerity
As the US and Europe turn from stimulus to fiscal austerity, claims are heard that spending cuts actually stimulate economic growth. That is the argument heard, not just from the…
Expanding the Canada Pension Plan
The case for expanding benefits under the CPP as a needed response to the crisis of private pensions continues to win expert support – even as the financial industry and…
The Bank Moves to Hit the Ball
The release of today’s Monetary Policy Report from the Bank of Canada follows yesterday’s announcement of no change in interest rates, the latest in a long series. It reminds me…
International Journal of Labour Research
The new issue of the International Journal of Labour Research (edited by Canada’s own Pierre la Liberte ) entitled “Crisis: Causes, Prospects and Alternatives” is now available. The issue takes…
The Underground Economy and Business Tax Evasion
Statscan have produced interesting and important new estimates of the upper bound size of the “underground” or “non observed” economy, putting it at a seemingly modest 2.2% of GDP in…
Unions and Inequality
An important paper by Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld which is forthcoming in the American Journal of Sociology finds that the decline in private sector union density in the…
Best Books on the Economic Crisis
With the Summer reading season at hand, here is a short list – in no particular order – of the best books I have read over the last couple of…
Who Holds the Family Purse-Strings?
Statscan have released an interesting paper, “The Income Management Strategies of Older Couples in Canada.” It looks at who controls the family finances in couples with one partner aged 45…
The Kids Are Not All Right
As is well-known, young people are still bearing the brunt of the recession. The employment rate for youth aged 15-24 last month was 55.6%, well down from 60.3% back before…
World Bank Joint Ventures With JP Morgan
(The following was sent by ITUC Washington representative Peter Bakvis and deserves wider distribution.) In partnership with Wall Street investment bank JP Morgan, the World Bank has launched a food…