This paper asks whether comprehensive, non-interest government size has an inverted Ushaped effect on private economic output in Canada and whether its current size is too large relative to the estimated tipping point. Using data from 1929 through 2011 and controlling for both correlations...

This paper examines the regularity that business cycle peaks and federal elections often arise together in parliamentary democracies as it applies to Canadian data over the post Confederation time period (1870 onwards). Breaking the simultaneity of these two events and properly identifying...

This paper re-examines the relation between private economic performance and federal government size in Canada over the long 1870-2011 time period. The particular focus is on whether the effect of government size on private output has an inverted U shape with a tipping point. Its innovation is...

This paper asks whether Canadian data is consistent with political opportunism, partisanship and/or political competition effects on real output growth since Confederation. Using data from the 1870 to 2005 time period, we find support for an electoral cycle only if actual election dates are...

This paper examines the empirical regularity that in Canada business cycle peaks and federal elections have tended to arise together over the long post-Confederation time period following 1867. We argue that rather than being simultaneous, the two events are related sequentially and that...

This paper asks whether Canadian data is consistent with the predicted effects of political opportunism, partisanship, and political competition on real output growth since Confederation. Using annual data from 1870 to 2005 we find new support for an opportunistic electoral cycle in Canadian...

In this paper we examine the impact of a professor’s appearance, as rated by students, on his or her salary, controlling for research and teaching productivity. We also estimate the impacts of a professor’s appearance on the quality of his or her teaching, as evaluated by students, and the...

This paper analyzes the persistence property of energy use in 107 countries around the world during 1971-2011 using different subsampling confidence intervals introduced by Romano and Wolf (2001). These confidence intervals are much more informative than the unit root tests and are more robust...