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1. Off Target: The Economics Literature Does Not Support the 1.5°C Climate Ceiling

   Many advocates of government intervention to curb greenhouse-gas emissions have called for a temperature ceiling on global warming. The consensus was originally 2 degrees Celsius, but advocates of more aggressive action succeeded in shifting the goal to 1 ...

2. Achieving the Four-Day Work Week: Essays on Improving Productivity Growth in Canada

   Surveys of Canadians have shown a strong desire for reduced work hours with a four-day work week being a highly prized goal. This is hardly surprising given that leisure time is a valuable good for most people. To be sure, a four-day work week would be ...

3. Achieving the Four-Day Work Week: Part 3 Essays

   The Drag on Productivity From Excessive Regulation, by researcher Laura Jones, chief strategic officer and executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), notes that Canadian businesses could save nearly $11 billion ...

4. Trends in Canadian Forest Fires, 1959–2019

   In recent years, media coverage and academic discussions of extreme fire activity have fostered the belief among some Canadians that the country is suffering from a rising trend of destruction from forest fires. During the period of reliable data from ...

5. Managing the Risks of Hydraulic Fracturing, 2020

   The practice of hydraulic fracturing—or “fracking”—in conjunction with horizontal drilling techniques has allowed for an enormous increase in oil- and natural-gas production in Canada. The modern practices associated with fracking can allow for much more ...

6. Canada’s Rising Personal Tax Rates and Falling Tax Competitiveness (2019)

   In December 2015, Canada’s new Liberal government introduced changes to Canada’s personal income tax system. Among the changes for the 2016 tax year, the federal government added a new income tax bracket, raising the top tax rate from 29 to 33 percent on ...

7. Carbon Pricing in Alberta

   One of the most important tax policy debates in Canada and Alberta specifically concerns “carbon pricing”, that is, the government’s imposition of an extra cost on activities that release carbon dioxide. Two common mechanisms of carbon pricing are a cap ...

8. Restoring a Competitive Labour Market in Alberta

   For the first decade and a half of the new millennium, Alberta was the engine of the Canadian economy. The province enjoyed brisk growth in its population, employment, and economic output, especially compared to other provinces. An important contributing ...

9. Ontario vs. Michigan: Policy Lessons from the Wolverine State

   Michigan’s strong economic performance since 2011 stands in contrast to Ontario, a jurisdiction that also has a large manufacturing base as a central feature of its economy but one that has not experienced an economic resurgence comparable to Michigan’s ...

10. Raising the Minimum Wage: Misguided Policy, Unintended Consequences

    Proposals to increase the minimum wage have re-emerged in provinces across the country. For instance, the Alberta government recently pledged to hike the provincial minimum wage from $10.20 to $15 per hour by 2018, already taking the first step with a $1 ...