Vol.
23 No. 4 December 1997
Articles:
Unemployment
Incidence of Immigrant Men in Canada
James Ted McDonald and Christopher Worswick
The
unemployment incidence of immigrant and non-immigrant men in Canada
is compared using 11 cross-sectional surveys spanning the years from
1982 to 1993. Recent immigrants are found to have higher unemployment
probabilities than nonimmigrants with the difference being larger
in recession years.
Subsequently,
measures of unemployment assimilation of immigrants are found to be
sensitive to the macroeconomic conditions of the survey years. The
main implication of the results for policy is that recent immigrants
would benefit most from labour market programs that facilitate the
transition of unemployed immigrants back to employment during recessions.
Immigrant Participation in the Unemployment Insurance System
Arnold de SilvaArnold de Silva
This
paper finds that there are significant differences in the probability
of UI participation across ethnic groups. This is an aspect which
has been overlooked in the Canadian literature. It also finds that
whereas the probability of immigrants who came to Canada before 1975
receiving UI is often not significantly different from that of the
British who came before 1966, this is not the case with those who
arrived after 1975. Several ethnic groups are found to have a relatively
high UI propensity.
Anatomy of a Policy Area: The Case of Shipping
Daniel Hosseus and Leslie A. Pal
Policy fields are usually defined by conventional usage rather than
by systematic analysis. This paper experiments with a methodology
of boundary analysis that builds inductively through the aggregation
of "topics" and policy instruments. Using the case of shipping
policy, we develop a list of 473 topics drawn from several bibliographical
and policy sources. These are then aggregated into 135 categories
with accompanying policy instruments. While the methodology has obvious
limitations, the experiment and case study demonstrate that it is
possible to systematically estimate the complete possible contents
of a policy field. The approach shows sufficient promise to warrant
refinements and broader applications to a wide variety of estimation
problems. It also makes a modest contribution to the study of policy
instruments, which has tended to get stuck at the "classification"
stage without much detailed empirical analysis of how and when instrument
categories actually apply.
Double Dividend Environmental Taxation and Canadian Carbon Emissions
Control
Ross McKitrick
The
possibility of using revenues from environmental taxes to reduce other
distortions in the tax system (the so-called double dividend approach)
has been discussed recently. This paper reviews the current debate
and presents empirical evidence to suggest that the double dividend
approach can significantly reduce the cost of CO2 emissions control
in Canada and possibly eliminate aggregate welfare and output reductions
due to implementation of a carbon tax.
Public Participation and Environmental Policy Outcomes
Andrew J. Green
In
a laudable attempt to increase public participation in environmental
policymaking, Canadian governments have grafted US-style participation
rights onto the Canadian structure of policymaking. Using the examples
of regulation of sulphur dioxide emissions, automobiles, and pulp
and paper effluent in Canada and the US, this paper argues that, while
this increase in public participation helps off-set the power of industry
and provides greater information to regulators on the benefits of
regulation, it can lead to less than optimal results. Because no changes
have been made to theunderlying structure of policymaking, the addition
of these public participation rights risks overregulation when public
demand for control is high without reducing the possibility of underregulation
when public interest is low. A new structure of environmental policymaking
is needed to permit participation by all parties affected by regulation
(including both the public and regulated parties) in a manner which
permits effective and rational environmental policy.
