I just did a post on Worthwhile Canadian Initiative comparing the most recent employment numbers to what transpired in the early 1980s. The inspiration for this was a number of media reports that gushed positively to no end about how well employment was performing and that there was plenty of steam left in Canada's economy. Indeed, a number of stories noted that Canada's January-February employment growth in 2019 was the best since the same two months on 1981. Of course, all of these stories neglected to add what happened after February 1981 which was one of the most severe recessions in the postwar period that saw unemployment rates peak at nearly 13 percent. For this post, click here.
And then there are my last two posts on the Fraser Institute blog. As part of the lead up to the March 19th Federal Budget, I take a look at federal government finances and note that large deficits are on track until 2022-23. A key point is that there has not been a revenue slowdown. While these deficits might be understandable during a recession or as part of a strategic investment mandate, it is not really the case here. It is just more spending. For this post, click here.
Finally, a post on the evolution of the United States federal debt looks at the the contribution to the debt to GDP ratio ranked by president all the way back to George Washington who incidentally was pretty good at fiscal management given the hand he was dealt in the wake of the American Revolution. Overall, wartime presidents have seen the largest increases in their debt to GDP ratios with Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson topping the ranking. For this post, click here.
Overall, it has been a pretty busy time between blogging, the occasional media interview (did The Current in December with an interview after Stanley Fischer) working on research papers in health and historic wealth inequality, public presentations - did Port Arthur Rotary in November and on the books for Fort William Rotary in April - and other assorted research projects. Of course there is never enough time to do everything and my historical projects on Lakehead Port Statistics pre-1950 and constructing a fiscal series for Ontario pre-1960 are going to take a lot longer than anticipated...
In other news, I am off on some travels this month. Have a trip to Regina coming to visit their Economic Department and I will be heading off to Sudbury and Laurentian University next week for a couple of presentations during their Research Week. My first presentation is a paper co-authored with Rob Petrunia (Lakehead) as follows:
Monday March 18th: 1:00 – 2:35 pm Economic Inequality and Crime Rates in Canada (Governors’ Lounge, 11th floor, R.D. Parker Building)The Department of Economics will present a talk by Dr. Livio Di Matteo (professor of Economics at Lakehead University) on a critical issue in an age of globalization and technological change: the rising trend in income and wealth inequality and its adverse social effects.
My second presentation is titled "Arrested Development: Northern Ontario's Economy in the Past, Present and Future and is part of the following session:
Tuesday March 19th: 10:00 – 11:30 am The Economy of Northern Ontario: Structural Changes and Implications for the Labour Market( Governors’ Lounge, 11th floor, R.D. Parker Building)The Department of Economics will present a seminar on the changing economic landscape and the effects of long-term structural changes on the labour market of Northern Ontario
The latter talk with be a pretty expansive overview of the history of Northern Ontario's economy in terms of its development, the host of government initiatives and plans over the decades, what has worked or not worked, and thoughts about the future.
If you are in Sudbury for Research Week, feel free to attend!
