Child obesity is currently an important policy problem in Canada. Making the best evidence-based policy choices in response requires having the best possible evidence. Yet, we point out how easy it can be to make serious mistakes when measuring child obesity, particularly for young children. We...

This paper uses estimates of the Sen-Shorrocks-Thon measure of poverty intensity in Canadian provinces, and the 95 percent confidence interval surrounding such estimates, for 1984, 1989 and 1991-96 to compare Canadian provinces over time and internationally. Coinciding with a more general social...

Between 1980 and 2000, average actual working hours per adult rose by 234 in the United States while falling by 170 in Germany. These trends imply that growth in per capita GDP may be a poor indicator of trends in average economic well-being and that trends in money income inequality may...

How much might poor financial market returns affect the financial well-being of Canadian seniors? We compare three scenarios: if Canadian financial markets (a) never experienced the financial crisis of 2008 (i.e., continued on their pre-2008 path); (b) experienced the crisis and return to...

This paper argues that the well-being of all Canadians will be increased by policies that make it easier for individuals to smooth their labour supply more evenly over the life cycle. However, if working longer is to represent an improvement in individual well-being, it must be due to choice,...

This paper starts from the definition that "structural unemployment occurs when workers are unable to fill available jobs because they lack the skills, do not live where jobs are available, or are unwilling to work at the wage rate offered in the market." This implies that the number of...