Hot Topics in Economics

Glen Hodgson Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist Forecasting and Analysis

Who should pay for the health care of Canadians? The users of the publicly funded health care system are also the ones who pay the necessary taxes, of course. But there is no consensus on the level of ...

Kip Beckman Principal Research Associate, Economic Services

How will the ongoing debt crisis in Europe play itself out over the next few months? Could the euro zone actually collapse as countries flee to the safety of their former currencies like the mark and lira? Nobody knows the answers to ...

Glen Hodgson Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist Forecasting and Analysis

As the world economy emerges from the 2008-09 financial crisis and recession, it is becoming abundantly clear that we are entering a more austere fiscal environment. Nations and regions (not to mention firms and individuals) that have prepared ...

Michael Burt Director Canadian Industrial Outlook

With the quantity of job creation having slowed in recent months, questions about the quality of the jobs being created are being asked again. Bring on the cries of woe over the relative dearth of new jobs in “good paying” manufacturing industries. The ...

Lin Ai Economist Forecasting & Analysis

China is often called the world’s workshop and its economic growth is driven largely by manufacturing exports, but the country needs to change its ways if it is to achieve more balanced, sustainable growth. China needs to achieve a better growth balance—creating a ...

Kip Beckman Principal Research Associate, Economic Services

The gambling Mecca of America is in serious trouble and, while some U.S. cities are slowly starting to emerge from the doldrums, Las Vegas definitely isn’t one of them. The unemployment rate in Nevada is over 14 per cent – the highest ...

Mario Lefebvre Director Centre for Municipal Studies

My 12 years-plus stay at The Conference Board of Canada has been really fascinating. I knew that economics can be applied to several different fields, but I never thought that as part of my job I could actually get to talk ...

Eric Thomson Economist Economic Services

According to the Daily Bread Food Bank , in Toronto, the fastest growing population using food banks are unemployed manufacturing workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits. It’s little surprise given that hundreds of thousands of manufacturing employees were displaced by restructuring during the ...

Kip Beckman Principal Research Associate, Economic Services

The Brazilians are mad at the Americans and Europeans. The Japanese are mad at the Chinese and South Koreans. The Americans have accused the Chinese of deliberately keeping the yuan undervalued, a development that has led to huge U.S. trade deficits and ...

Kip Beckman Principal Research Associate, Economic Services

Shakespeare’s famous line from the “Merchant of Venice” is certainly at odds with recent developments in gold markets as prices have surged by over 500 per cent since 2002 – far higher than returns in equity markets over the same time period. ...