Tight labor markets driven by resource booms could increase the opportunity cost of schooling and crowd out human capital formation. For oil-producing economies such as the Province of Alberta, the OPEC oil shocks during the period from 1973 to 1981 may have had an adverse long-term effect on...

Homelessness in Alberta is overwhelmingly concentrated in Calgary and Edmonton, with almost two-thirds of total provincial shelter usage in the former. Calgary also experiences much greater fluctuations in shelter use. Three interconnected economic factors — the supply of rental...

Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario all maintain separate income-support programs for the disabled. This paper examines the criteria applicants must meet for each program and traces variations in monthly payment levels in relation to political exigencies and inflationary pressures affecting...

Provincial budgets may normally make for dry reading, but in Alberta's case, there is plenty of suspense lurking inside the pages — and that's not necessarily a good thing. Your average family may know certain things about balancing a budget: keeping spending roughly in line with income; not...

This briefing note uses a newly completed time series on the government of Alberta's finances to present a broad overview of the government's budgetary choices since fiscal year 1965–66. The note paints a picture using broad strokes that focuses on the government's attempts to deal with...

This paper discusses and describes measures of poverty and, on the basis of that discussion, proposes a public policy response that more closely and more easily targets income support to where it is most needed and most effective. Our review of poverty measures shows there are many holes that...

Over the past two decades there has occurred a shift in economic power from central Canada to other parts of the country. Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador have both claimed a noticeably larger share of Canada's GDP since 1995 but easily the largest shift of economic output has been to...

On September 6th, 2014, members of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta elected Jim Prentice as leader of their party, and Premier of Alberta.The School of Public Policy assembled its key thinkers in economic, taxation, energy and natural resource policy to provide unsolicited but...