Canada’s federal and provincial governments spend a lot of money subsidizing postsecondary students. Tuition and education/textbook tax credits, in particular, cost the federal government around $1.6 billion in 2012 – a sum much greater than the net cost of the Canada Student Loan Program....

The adoption of new health technologies brings potential improvements to quality of life as well as new costs for provincial healthcare systems. An appropriate evidence-based framework for adoption decisions therefore can go a long way to improving value for money in our health systems. While...

Since the report of an expert commission five years ago, Ontario pension standards have been updated multiple times in response – but there is still room for significant improvements. Further action is needed in three key areas: • the low participation rate of private sector employees in...

Expectations for investment returns play an important role in establishing business capital cost and capital structure, as well as influencing individual savings behaviour, risk-taking, and long-term funding of institutional obligations such as pensions. Proper and realistic forecasting makes...

Interest rates in Canada and in many other countries have not been so low since the Great Depression. When taking into account inflation, short-term interest rates are negative in most developed countries, including Canada where the overnight rate currently stands at 1 percent in nominal terms....

The existing debate about the cost of traffic congestion in Canadian cities has been limited to estimating the value of time lost by people sitting in traffic. However, there are broader costs of congestion that should be taken into account. This Commentary offers a decision-making framework for...

In Canada, various sectors of the economy are subject to government regulations, many of which are designed to correct market failures. However, such regulations are generally inconsistent with federal competition law, which aims to promote economic efficiency by maintaining the integrity of...

Skilled trades workers – ranging from electricians to carpenters to welders – are a crucial component of the Canadian labour force. However, many employers report that there are shortages of skilled workers in these occupations. Federal and provincial governments have targeted many grant and...

Technological and scientific research are crucial to long-term economic growth. Canadians are three times as rich today as 50 years ago thanks to new products and processes. The source of technological innovation is research and development (R&D), most of which takes place in the private sector...

Many official economic indicators are released with a time lag, released infrequently and often require revision. In this Commentary, I discuss new sources of electronically recorded data that are both timely and reflect the real-time intentions of millions (or billions) of agents. Specifically,...