This paper first recalls the high level of public indebtedness in Quebec. A literature review and a description of the evolution of the problematics, carried out by the means of a retrospective analysis as well as a projection exercise, show (1) the "uncoupling"" of the public finances that...

This document presents a detailed analysis of the regional development issue in Quebec. First, it includes an analysis of the available regional economic data, which confirms the relative decline of "peripheral"" regions versus ""central"" regions. A critical survey of regional policies enforced...

This document presents in French the results of a survey carried out at the CIRANO by Pierre Lambert, student from HEC-Montréal. It analyzes the service offer of the Québec companies working with the free software. Ce document présente une enquête sur l'offre de service des entreprises...

CIRANO and its partners are proposing the creation of an Expert Network in Open Standards and Open Source Software (Research, Expertise and Synergy for Open and Libres Standards and Software-RESOLL), which would be a partnership between information technology research centres, government and...

Le CIRANO et ses partenaires proposent la création d'un Réseau d'expertise en standards ouverts et en logiciels libres et ouverts (RESOLL) qui sera basé sur un partenariat entre des centres de recherche en technologies de l'information, des organismes utilisateurs gouvernementaux et privés...

We address evidence that competition from wireless telecommunications may already be having a substantial effect on the market for wireline services, despite historical estimates of price elasticity suggesting substantial market power (weak competition) in wireline services, considering both the...

This text investigates the causes of the noticeable difference between the education level reached by workers and the level of education required to do their job. This issue is important in order to appreciate the adequacy of the relationship between workplace requirements and the education...

As a new regulation comes into effect, a program of inspection must be set up to guarantee that the requirements are completed by the subjected facilities. Then the facilities must make the necessary corrective actions within reasonable times. Various questions arise when we evoke the subject of...

Reporting incidents and accidents is part of a continuous quality improvement process. The data collected through that process must be genuine and usable in order to understand what has really happened and to put forward adapted corrective measures. In the first part of this report, we will...

In this report, we first develop a simplified example that illustrates the importance of considering the option ``waiting to invest'' when valuing an investment. This is followed by a short description of other options that could be embedded in an investment opportunity. In order to stress the...