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Stephen Clarkson The following is a contribution in the blog series on the exceptional contribution of Stephen Clarkson to Canada.  Stephen Clarkson died in 2016. The substantial work he undertook on Canada’s relationship to Mexico is particularly relevant today as NAFTA negotiations occur. Stephen Clarkson Laura Macdonald is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. Her research is focused on the role of...

from David Ruccio On Wednesday, I referred to the wealth pyramid in the United States. But I didn’t really represent that pyramid in the chart I provided.   Here it is, above, with the wealth share of the bottom 50 percent (in red), the middle 40 percent (in blue), and the top 10 percent (in green)—a wealth pyramid for each year, from 1962 to 2014. Or, here’s another, if you prefer a three-dimensional version of the latest year for which data are available. In 2014, the wealth share of...

What was the cause of the infamous Euro Area 2011-2013 double dip? Answer: a grave policy mistake. Already high ECB interest rates were increased (13 April 2011 13 July 2011) at the same time when fiscal policy was tightened (‘austerity’), unemployment was at record levels (graph 1) and use of capacity was still lowish (less important, core inflation was low, too). As a consequence, Euro Area unemployment started to increase at a time when Japanese and USA unemployment continued to...

I think of the debate over net neutrality as a fight over the rules of the game where the game is the delivery of information and entertainment. There are big corporations arguing all sides of the issue. All of them are happy to explain how the position they advocate will benefit the public. But nobody seems interested in discussing issues pertaining to the very bedrock on which the communication industry is based. That bedrock is the right of the way...

from Dean Baker Somehow, some way, someone paid $450 million, after buyer’s fees, for Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi at Christie’s last Wednesday. Believed to be the last work by the artist in private hands, the painting’s price smashed all previous records. Since the price also seemed more on par with the education budget of a medium-sized country, Artsy asked a range of leaders from the arts, economics, bioethics, and development to tell us how they’d spend $450 million. I have to...

from Lars Syll Nowadays many mainstream economists maintain that ‘imaginative empirical methods’ — especially randomized experiments (RCTs) — can help us to answer questions concerning the external validity of economic models. In their view, they are, more or less, tests of ‘an underlying economic model’ and enable economists to make the right selection from the ever-expanding ‘collection of potentially applicable models.’ It is widely believed among economists that the scientific value...

from Norbert Häring How many companies have merged into corporate groups in Germany? We don’t know. The official figures are completely unconvincing. We have a Monopolies Commission which, together with the German Federal Statistical Office, has the legal mandate to monitor market concentration. Germany’s parliament wanted to ensure that the necessary information about the possible emergence of problematic market power is available, only to discover this no longer fits in with the...

from David Ruccio Yesterday, I looked at the enormous wealth of U.S. billionaires and the growing gap between them and the rest of the American people. Today, I want to examine what’s happened in recent years at the bottom of the wealth pyramid. We know that, for decades, the share of net personal wealth owned by the bottom 90 percent has been declining. It peaked at 38.5 percent in the mid-1980s and, by 2014, it had fallen to 27 percent—more or less where it started in the early...

I don’t see any convincing evidence of a housing market revival, particularly with the growth of real estate lending remaining well below that of last year: Highlights Purchase applications for home mortgages rose a seasonally adjusted 5 percent in the November 17 week, though overall mortgage activity was only barely higher (by 0.1 percent) than in the prior week as the increase in buyers was offset by a 5 percent decline in refinancing activity. On an unadjusted basis, the...