One view is that concessions demanded by and granted to interests groups are responsible for steady fiscal decline, and delay in reforms. We argue that negative supply shocks combined with the political objective of protecting the poor can build in incentives leading to these results. Pricing...

The paper explores contractual types of public private partnerships that would deliver maximum value in the Indian context. Under incomplete contracts social institutions, tailored to the specific context, can contribute to effective governance. We first draw out some implications of contract...

A new specification is employed to test for the degree of endogeneity of commercial bank credit, and its response to structural variables relevant to the Indian context. Our specification allows us to both identify money supply in a single equation, and disentangle the contribution of the...

A short-run model incorporates instantaneous portfolio equilibrium with macroeconomic flows to clarify the structure of real-financial sector interactions. If equity and foreign exchange markets are introduced in structuralist theories of asset markets in developing countries, the key result...

Interprovincial trade barriers are a drag on Canadian productivity and send an embarrassing message to international investors.Despite some past progress in reducing them, they remain an irritant to our economic union. Trade liberalization as pursued by Alberta and British Columbia in the TILMA...

This paper provides an interpretive synopsis of the results of a conference on inflation-induced distortions in financial reporting and taxation held in October 1981 at the height of the post-war inflation. It provides analysis of the magnitudes of the likely distortions in reporting and...

This paper reviews the issues that would arise if Quebec were to separate from Canada. It also presents quantitative estimates of the likely orders of magnitude of their economic impact both on Quebec and the Rest of Canada. Its overall conclusion is that Quebec would be much harder hit than the...

Rising deficits and high debt ratios characterized currency crises in countries with low private savings rates and low population densities. But in emerging markets with large population transferring to more productive employment, sustainable debts and deficits may be higher. Debt ratios fall...

This paper argues that the two-percentage point cut in the GST to 5 per cent proposed by the Conservatives in the January 2006 Canadian federal election and implemented in the 2007 budget was not “stupid” as suggested by many economists. To the contrary, it fortuitously turned out to provide...

Resurgence in Indian inflation since 2007 was associated with sharp food and oil price inflation. Propagation mechanisms that allow these relative prices to affect aggregate prices include governance failures, the effect of food prices on wages, exchange rates on costs and the response to cost...