Vol.
22 No. 4 December 1996
Articles:
Who Should Pay for University Education? Some Net Benefit Results
by Funding Source for New Brunswick
Vaughan Dickson, William J. Milne, and David Murrell
This
paper measures rates of return from spending on New Brunswick universities
for four constituencies: the provincial government, the federal and
provincial governments together, students, and society taken as a
whole.
Our
main finding is that the rate of return is higher for both levels
of government taken together than for the provincial government alone
- even before allowance is made for outmigration of university graduates.
This suggests a continued role for federal government financing, since
otherwise there would be an incentive for small provinces to decrease
funding and import graduates from other provinces. Another finding,
relevant to user pay arguments about university funding, is that the
private return to students exceeds the social return, but this difference
narrows considerably when costs of attending university are confined
to teaching costs only.
The Bank of Canada, Accountability and Legitimacy: Some Proposals
for Reform
J. Matthew Clark
Criticisms
of the Bank of Canada as unaccountable, insensitive to the needs of
Canadians, and beholden to the wishes of central Canada reflect a
growing animosity towards the Bank that should not be ignored nor
taken lightly. The failure of the Bank of Canada to receive the diffuse
support of societal interests and thus to be perceived as legitimate,
threatens its ability to perform credible monetary policy and even
its independence. In order to ensure that the ability to perform sound
monetary policy in Canada is not jeopardized, certain reforms need
to be made.
Uruguay Round Impacts on Canada
Trien T. Nguyen, Carlo Perroni, and Randall M. Wigle
This paper offers an evaluation of possible effects of the Final Act
of the Uruguay Round with a special focus on Canada. Our two main
findings can be summarized as follows: first, the estimated impacts
of the Uruguay Round are more modest than previous estimates; our
second finding pertains to the liberalization in textiles and clothing
which may be the most significant part of the Uruguay Round in terms
of its reallocative impact in Canada.
The Impacts of Trucking Deregulation in Ontario: A Market-Specific
Analysis
Clarence G. Woudsma and Pavlos S. Kanaroglou
The deregulation of transportation industries has been an ongoing
part of the trend towards less government involvement in the marketplace.
This paper deals with two important questions related to the impact
of the reform of economic regulations in the Ontario for-hire trucking
industry (Truck Transportation Act, 1989). Has there been an overall
decline in shipment rates and have shipment rates involving less accessible
regions increased disproportionately? The conclusions indicate that
overall, there has been a decline in shipment rates in the truckload
(TL) segment of the industry, although the results are inconsistent
in the less-than-truckload (LTL) segment. Also, there does not appear
to be a significant increase in the rates for service to less accessible
regions. While deregulation has had an influence on certain specific
markets examined, the scale and range of impacts have not approached
those projected in the debates concerning deregulation in Ontario.
Immigrant Families in the Canadian Labour Market
Christopher Worswick
The labour market activity of immigrant and non-immigrant married
couples is compared using data from the 1981 and 1991 Canadian Censuses.
New evidence is provided on the performance of immigrant men and women
in terms of three components of annual earnings: hourly wage rates,
hours worked per week, and weeks worked per year. Evidence of intra-family
trade-offs of investments in the immigrant husband's career at the
expense of investments in the wife's career are not found overall.
However, the wife's labour market performance is found to play a major
role in the earnings creation of immigrant families. The findings
support a family orientation to both the evaluation and the implementation
of immigration policies.
