In this paper we show that the abundance of a natural resource such as oil need not present a curse for the domestic economy, dooming the non-oil sector to secondary status and a long period of stagnation and decline. Rather oil revenues can themselves be source of economy wide growth. What is...

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 why the governing party in a Westminster parliamentary system would ever surrender the right to choose the timing of the next election in favour of a fixed electoral cycle that precisely dates future elections. The analysis is directed at explaining Canada’s recent (2007)...

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...

In this paper Engel-Granger time series methodology is used to combine trending economic variables with stationary political factors to search for well-defined political influences on central government budgets in Canada over the entire post-Confederation time period from 1870 to 2000. To...

Since its publication over 60 years ago, Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Prices (1936) has substantially influenced both macroeconomic theory and popular opinion about what governments can and should do. However, the extent to which counter-cyclical stabilization has actually...