From somewhere off in the distance… “Mr. Prime Minister, it’s New Brunswick Premier David Alward on the telephone”. PM: Groan. Put him through. Alward: Hello, Mr, Prime Minister. Thanks for taking my call. PM: Hey, David, do you want my…
Continue ReadingMunicipal politics matters – a lot
Some interesting drama on election night. Saint Johners voted for change in a big way. I think Mel Norton will be a good leader in the Port City. I have always felt that cities take on the persona of…
Continue ReadingShale Gas Development: The Twin Problems of Minds and Markets
99% of the space in the public square allocated for debate about shale gas development in New Brunswick has been used up by debate about the environmental concerns raised by the extraction technology. As I have said before, if…
Continue ReadingPrivate sector-led economic development
A few of us have been chatting about the limited mention of the role of the private sector in the government’s new economic development plan. There seems to be a lot more alignment and focus on government efforts but the…
Continue ReadingPost Script: Film industry in Atl. Canada
Here we go again. It seems funny to me that we can’t have discussion about this stuff without name calling. Just for the record I looked at the 2007 and 2006 I-O tables and the subsidy to GDP ratios were…
Continue ReadingThere’s not much business in show business
The following table shows the economic impacts of one dollar’s worth of exogenous industry output shock in the motion picture and related industries (employment effects are per $1 million worth of output). The latest data we have for this is…
Continue ReadingJulia and the battle for America’s soul
The Europeans are having an old fashioned battle over the extent of public austerity but I don’t get the sense it is some kind of existential battle. Most Europeans don’t have a hostile view of the state they just haggle…
Continue ReadingStill bullish on NB – shout out to John Oxner
My column today, entitled “Still bullish on NB” is somewhat inspired by John Oxner, who works for the provincial government, and has been reminding me of the importance of carrots versus sticks when trying to convince people of your point…
Continue ReadingIt’s the economy, stupid. It’s mine, all mine!
My favourite NB economist (turned court reporter?), Kurt Peacock, mentioned my blog “It’s the economy, stupid” in his TJ column yesterday. I presented to a group in Halifax yesterday where the person who introduced me made some nice comments about…
Continue ReadingNew household spending data reveals interesting trends
One of my favourite Stats Can surveys is the household spending survey because you get the minutiae of how the average household spends its money and the results can be kind of interesting. Only one province spends less of its avg. household…
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