Tag Archives: fiscal policy

In anticipation of next week’s Alberta budget, I’ve written a ‘top 10’ overview of subsidized rental housing in the province. Points raised in the blog post in include the following: -On a per capita basis, Alberta has far fewer subsidized housing units than the rest of Canada. -In 2017, BC’s provincial government funded more than 15 times as many housing units than Alberta, despite having a roughly similar overall population, and despite Alberta having an NDP...

Quite a good piece that pushes the MMT view without naming it.Progressive Economy ForumThe Monetarist fantasy is overRobert Skidelsky | Crossbench peer and Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at Warwick University

“Fiscally responsible” is one of the more Orwellian phrases in American politics. Lawmakers earn that coveted title by affirming the three tenets of the Beltway’s official budgetary orthodoxy: (1) Deficits are inherently undesirable, (2) all new spending (on things that cannot be used to kill foreigners) should be fully offset by new taxes, and (3) reducing America’s existing national debt should be a top-tier policy priority. But these premises are rooted less in economic science than...

Most public debate around Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) revolves around fiscal policy. This is not too surprising, as this is largely where political economy concerns crop up when discussing MMT. However, the emphasis on fiscal policy makes discussions of the MMT debates quite awkward. There is a large divide between the debate in modern economic theory, and the debate in popular discourse. If we look at economic theory, there are no credible challenges to the MMT story at present; at most,...

Image with acknowledgment to https://www.flickr.com/photos/birminghammag/6798098618/in/photostream/ In his FT article yesterday (30 January), “The UK’s employment and productivity puzzle”, Martin Wolf says“The most important point is that the aggregate productivity performance of the UK economy since...

I’ve written an assessment of the 2014-2019 St. John’s Community Plan to End Homelessness. The full assessment can be found here. Points raised in the assessment include the following: -Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest unemployment rate of any Canadian province. This pulls people into homelessness, while also making it more challenging for the provincial government to finance policy asks (such as subsidized housing with social work support). -People...

I’ve written an assessment of the 2014-2019 St. John’s Community Plan to End Homelessness. The full assessment can be found here. Points raised in the assessment include the following: -Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest unemployment rate of any Canadian province. This pulls people into homelessness, while also making it more challenging for the provincial government to finance policy asks (such as subsidized housing with social work support). -People...

 The AssertionEven before Corbyn launched the Labour Manifesto, the Institute of Fiscal Studies launched its critique of Labour tax policies, asserting that Labour’s proposed tax increases were not limited to the richest,:"The truth is of course that in the end corporation tax is paid by workers, customers or shareholders so would affect many in the population".  On the BBC Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell politely rejected the IFS critique, which in essence asserts that the...

I’ve just written a ‘top 10’ overview of the recent Alberta budget. Points raised in the post include the following: -The budget lays out a four-year strategy of spending cuts, letting population growth and inflation do much of the heavy lifting. -After one accounts for both population growth and inflation, annual provincial spending in Alberta by 2022 is projected to be 16.2% lower than it was last year. -Alberta remains Canada’s lowest-taxed province. It also...

I’ve just written a ‘top 10’ overview of the recent Alberta budget. Points raised in the post include the following: -The budget lays out a four-year strategy of spending cuts, letting population growth and inflation do much of the heavy lifting. -After one accounts for both population growth and inflation, annual provincial spending in Alberta by 2022 is projected to be 16.2% lower than it was last year. -Alberta remains Canada’s lowest-taxed province. It also...