By Christopher Cotton, Queen’s University
Last night, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America. Half of the US is excited. The other half scared. Over the last 12 hours, there has been a spike in internet searches for “move to Canada” and the Canadian immigration website crashed.
What better time to release a new ranking of North American universities.
Top 10 most-desirable North American Universities as of November 9, 2016Read More »
By Stephen Snudden, JDI Student Fellow, Queen’s University
By Christopher Cotton, Queen’s University
The Globe and Mail recently published an article arguing that it is undemocratic for Americans to move to Canada if Donald Trump is elected president. In the article, Jonathan Zimmerman, a history of education professor, argues that saying you’ll move to Canada if Trump wins is like saying democracy is “only a good thing if your side comes out on top,” akin to Trump accepting the outcome of the election only if he wins.Read More »
By Alex Chernoff, Senior Economist at the Bank of Canada
At the 2016 Canadian Economic Association meetings, Alex Chernoff received the 2015 Robert Mundell Prize for his work on dairy quotas and price regulation. Alex was a Queen’s doctoral candidate and JDI Student Fellow at the time; Dr. Chernoff is now a Senior Economist at the Bank of Canada. Here, he summarizes his contribution. Note that the views in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Canada.Read More »
By Taylor Jaworski, Queen’s University
Structural transformation is the long-run process that moves workers (and the output they produce) from agriculture to the manufacturing or service sectors. Empirically, this process is characterized by a declining share of employment (and output) in agriculture as income per capita rises. The flip side of the transition out of agriculture is the increasing then decreasing importance of manufacturing and the increasing importance of services. The figure below, which is taken from a recent survey by Berthold Herrendorf, Richard Rogerson, and Akos Valentinyi, illustrates this pattern for several currently developed countries since 1800.
Structural transformation poses several challenges for policymakers. To see why, a useful starting point is the large literature in economics that describes the mechanismsRead More »
By Wenbo Zhu, JDI Student Fellow, Queen’s University
Some technological advancements are skill-complementing, meaning that they tend to increase the productivity and demand for skilled workers. Other technological advancements are skill-replacing, meaning that they tend to reduce the demand for skilled workers and raise the productivity and demand for unskilled workers. Electronic computers are typically considered a prime example of skill-complementing technologies, whereas assembly lines and the use of interchangeable parts in the manufacturing industry are classic examples of skill-replacing technologies.
Disentangling the impacts of each type of technology is important for understanding of the impact of technological changes on labor markets. Read More »
In a new NBER working paper, Debraj Ray (Columbia) and Arthur Robson (Simon Fraser) propose an alternative to the standard practice in economics of listing coauthors in alphabetical order. Let’s start randomly assigning coauthor order. Queen’s economist Christopher Cotton discusses this proposal.Read More »
By Beverly Lapham, Queen’s University
Researchers and policymakers have long recognized that firms within an industry differ along many dimensions (size, productivity, participation in international markets, etc.). However, firm-level empirical analysis and rigorous theoretical models with firm heterogeneity have only been developed in the last fifteen years or so. Such analyses improve our understanding of how these differences affect firms’ performance in global and domestic markets and their responses to trade liberalization.Read More »
By Mario Crucini, Vanderbilt University, and Gregor Smith, Queen’s University
By Taylor Jaworski, Queen’s University
Calls for renewed infrastructure investment have been prominent issues in recent election cycles in the United States and Canada. Bernie Sanders called for $1 trillion in spending compared with $48 billion in President Obama’s first term and a proposed $73 billion to end his second term. Here in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised an additional $60 billion in new infrastructure spending. These proposals have received the endorsement of many economists, including Larry Summers in a recent Washington Post op-ed and Paul Krugman in the New York Times earlier this year.
Crucially, policymakers need to clarify the objectives of infrastructure spending. On the one hand, is the goal to provide short- or medium-run stimulus to ailing economies? If so, then knowing the magnitude of the fiscal multiplier is essential. A survey and more recent work on the fiscal multiplier by Valerie Ramey of UC-San Diego is available here, here, and here. On the other hand, is the goal to take advantage of historically low interest rates and use improvements in transportation infrastructure to promote long-run economic growth? In this case, economic history together with recent advances in empirical economics can provide a window into the long-run benefits of investment in new highways, bridges, and rail infrastructure.Read More »
Economics and Policy 