In recent years, interest in aggregate or composite indicators of economic and social well-being at the community, national and international levels has grown greatly. For example, the release each year of the United Nations?Human Development Index (HDI) generates considerable media interest,...

In this chapter, Don Drummond makes the case that with large deficits there was little room for the Bank of Canada to reduce interest rates to stimulate the economy and generate revenues. It was imperative that the deficit be eliminated. Tax rates were already high so the government had no...

In this chapter, Pierre Fortin provides a critique of the conduct of Canadian monetary policy in the 1990s, a critique that he developed throughout the decade. While not denying that the US economic slowdown in the early 1990s reduced growth in Canada, Fortin lays the blame for the inferior...

In this chapter, Frank Graves examines the relationship between what he describes as the "official economy," as portrayed by conventional measures of economic performance, and public perceptions of the state of the economy. He also considers the public's understanding of the relationship between...

This report presents new estimates of the Index of Economic Well-being (IEWB) and its four domains (consumption flows, stocks of wealth, economic equality, and economic security) for 14 OECD countries for the 1980-2009 period. It finds that in 2009 Norway had the highest level of economic...

This report presents new estimates of the Index of Economic Well-being (IEWB) and its four domains (consumption flows, stocks of wealth, economic equality and economic security) for Canada and the provinces for the 1981-2010 period. It finds that the IEWB advanced at a 0.78 per cent average...

We use the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-being (LIMEW), the most comprehensive income measure available to date, to compare economic well-being in Canada and the United States in the first decade of the 21st century. This study represents the first international comparison based on...

This report presents estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) for a representative sample of Canadian households in 1999 and 2005. The results indicate that there was only modest growth in the average Canadian household’s total command over economic resources in...

In this chapter, Paul Jenkins and Brian O'Reilly survey the monetary policy developments in the 1990s, focusing on links between monetary policy and the economic well-being of Canadians. The Bank of Canada economists do admit that tight monetary policy in the early 1990s hurt growth in the...

In this chapter, John Helliwell sets the scene for many of the papers that follow by providing an up-to-date and lucid survey of the literature on the impact of social capital on both the economy or economic performance and well-being. This latter term is closely related to the concept of social...