Smoking is widely known to affect health adversely. The consequent cost to the publicly funded Canadian health-care system is a matter of considerable policy interest. We consider two core elements of health care: hospitals and physicians. This study, unlike previous Canadian studies, uses the...

Economic disparity between the Atlantic Provinces and the rest of Canada persists. The possibilities of reduced federal government transfers and Quebec separation further threaten the region. Maritime Union, a proposal that has a long history, has resurfaced in a modern form: economic union of...

Government expenditure on public inputs such as human capital formation and public infrastructure can significantly affect productivity. An interesting and highly relevant policy question is whether such expenditure should be financed according to the benefit-taxation principle. Focusing on...

Contrary to the dominant view of inefficient tax competition, Oates and Schwab (1991) show that capital-tax financing of public inputs leads to efficiency when the supply of these inputs is conditioned on business investment (Oates, W.E., Schwab, R.M., 1991. The allocative and distributive...

There is no consistent notion of country size in the literature on the voluntary provision of an international public good. This paper suggests preference-adjusted GNP as a useful index of size. Defining a country s size in that manner, contributing countries are unambiguously larger than free...

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is assessing whether to authorize the multi-billion dollar Muskrat Falls hydroelectricity project on the lower Churchill River in Labrador. Proponents say it is needed to handle expected increases in electricity consumption. A better first step,...