It is well known that in the United States the education premium--the ratio of the earnings of university graduates to the earnings of high school graduates--has risen sharply in the last twenty years. Some Canadian economists and policy makers presume the same fact holds in Canada. Since so...

For the years 1981 to 1997 the Survey of Consumer Finances served as the main source of information about the earnings of individuals, households and families. The Survey of Labour Income Dynamics, begun in 1993, was intended to replace and to improve upon the SCF. The Labour Force Survey which...

We present a measure of the correlation between the education levels of spouses based on a bivariate ordered probit model. The change in this correlation over time can be measured while controlling for the large changes in the educational attainment levels. The model is estimated with data from...

The paper explores whether the responses to food deprivation questions on the longitudinal Canadian National Population Health Survey help explain the links between socio-economic status and health. Transitions in food deprivation status are correlated with changes in health status. While health...

Within the 65+ age group, the percentage of labour market income received by the top 1% of earners has increased from about 30% in 1982 to more than 60% in 2002. The trend is smooth, is roughly uniform across provinces and does not appear to have been accelerated by top marginal tax rate...

This paper presents new homogeneous series on top shares of income from 1920 to 2000 in Canada using personal income tax return data. Top income shares display a U-shaped pattern over the century, with a precipitous drop during World War II, followed by a slower decline until 1970. Since the...

Between 1970 and 1986 all Canadian provinces introduced some version of a prescription drug subsidy for those age 65 or over and since 1986, all the provinces have increased copayments or deductibles to some degree. Employing a first-order approximation to the welfare gains from a subsidy, we...

The recent "Romanow" and "Kirby" inquiries into the Canadian health care system recommended a publicly funded catastrophic prescription drug insurance program to protect Canadians from potentially ruinous drug costs. While the Romanow commission was not specific about the nature of such a...

In 1988, marginal personal income tax rates changed in Canada, for some individuals by reasonably substantial amounts. This note examines a large sample of tax-filer data and finds little convincing evidence of any effect on contributions to Registered Retirement Saving Plans (RRSPs).