Three monetary regimes - the gold standard, a regime of 'socialism in many countries' and the post-Bretton Woods regime - and difficult transitions between them have shaped the economic history of the twentieth century. The regimes consisted of coherent sets of government policies and equally...

Over the twentieth century, Canada's energy, forestry, and mining industries played a substantial and increasing role in the growth and development of the aggregate economy. Despite the improving fundamentals that were underlying their increased contributions to the size, capital intensity, and...

Neighbours and Networks explores the economic relationship that existed between the Blood Indian reserve and the surrounding region of southern Alberta between 1884 and 1939. The Blood tribe, though living on a reserve, refused to become economically isolated from the larger community and indeed...

We examine the relative benefits of policy aimed at mitigating GHG emissions in Canada and globally. We find that while a carbon tax that holds the stock of global emissions below the 550 ppm level would yield positive net benefits for the world economy, the impact of such a tax on the Canadian...

This paper examines the implications of tuition and need-based financial aid policies for family income - post-secondary (PS) attendance relationships. We first conduct a parallel empirical analysis of the effects of parental income on PS attendance for recent high school cohorts in both the...

This paper investigates the effect of private pensions on the retirement wealth distribution. The model incorporates stochastic private pension coverage into a lifecycle model with stochastic earnings. The predictions of the calibrated model are compared to the distribution of retirement net...

The great recession of 2008-2009 resulted in a large fall in trade relative to output. Real trade fell roughly three times more than real GDP in the U.S. and Mexico, and by a factor of five in Canada. The decline in trade and output was particularly large in sectors with high levels of...

Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by endogeneity and measurement error. In this paper, we use an instrumental variables strategy to estimate the causal effect of income on children's math and reading achievement. Our identification derives...

We compare earnings inequality and mobility across the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. during the late 1990s. A flexible model of earnings dynamics that isolates positional mobility within a stable earnings distribution is estimated. Earnings trajectories are then simulated, and...

Measures of occupation distance based on underlying skill portfolios are constructed and used to contrast involuntary and total mobility. One component of total occupational mobility is voluntary mobility, including moves to higher job offers using the same skills, as well as promotions that may...