Vol.
26 No. 4 December/décembre 2000:
Real
Income, Unemployment and Subjective Well-Being: Revisiting the
Costs and Benefits of Inflation Reduction in Canada
Roderick Hill
The
benefits of disinflation have often been thought of as the discounted
value of the net income increases that might result. This weighs
lower incomes from higher short-term unemployment against expected
long-term income increases.
Such
measures of economic welfare typically find large net gains from disinflation.
However, studies of subjective well-being show that this overstages
gains in individuals' well-being because unemployment has significant
non-monetary costs, while higher average incomes may not be associated
with significant increases in average well-being. A simulation of
the 1990s disinflation in Canada shows that a net loss in average
well-being could result. Only if lower inflation raises well-being
directly are significant net gains possible.
Maternity
and Parental Benefits in Canada: Are there Behavioural Implications?
Shelley A. Phipps
This
paper uses micro data from the 1988/89/90 Labour Market Activities
Survey to study some behavioural implications of the Canadian maternity/parental
benefits system. We find, first, that fertility behaviour is not significantly
influenced by the availability of benefits, and, second, that there
is no evidence that women adjusted their labour-supply behaviour in
order to gain access to benefits. We also examine who is potentially
eligible for maternity/parental benefits. Teenaged new mothers, women
with little education and those experiencing difficulty in the labour
market are less likely to be eligible. Given the evidence on lack
of significant behavioural response, it would thus seem reasonable
to ease access to these benefits.
Licensing
Sex Work: Public Policy and Women's Lives
Jacqueline Lewis and Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale
The
population health promotion model directs our attention to the impact
of public policy, and the interface between various levels of policy,
on health and well-being. This model is applied in a case study of
the effect of municipal licensing of the escort industry on the health
and well-being of escorts in Windsor, Ontario. Attention to municipal
licensing and policing practices applied to the escort industry reveals
that although the potential exists for such policies to enhance the
health and well-being of sex workers, as such policies currently operate
in Windsor, they are not healthy public policies. This is in part
because of the way police use the information and resources made to
them through licensing. It is also related to the ambiguous position
in which municipalities and escort agencies are placed, in order to
implement licensing without violating federal criminal statutes related
to prostitution.
The
Effect of the Harmonized Sales Tax on Consumer Prices in Atlantic
Canada
David Murrell and Weiqiu Yu
This
paper examines the effect of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on consumer
prices for the three participating Atlantic Canada provinces from
April 1997 to March 1999. Using aggregate and disaggregate (eight-components)
consumer price index (CPI) data, we conduct counter-factual analysis
and find that, ceteris paribus, while the consumer price index for
overall items fell slightly during the first two years of the HST,
the change in the components of the CPI varies substantially from
one category to another.
Issues
and Commentaries
An
Analysis of the Canadian Information Techology Labour Market
Nicole Haggerty and Scott Schneberger
Applied
information technology (IT) is credited with ushering in a new era
- the information era - delivered by specialized information technology
labour. In spite of industry reports of information technology labour
market shortages over the past 15 years, some Canadian government
reports give no evidence of an IT labour shortage now or in the near
future. This paper examines these conflicting reports by discussing
them in the context of labour economic theory. The results support
the notion of a national IT labour shortage relative to the general
Canadian labour market and they highlight deficiencies in IT labour
market information. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.
Constructing
"Ethnic Canadians": The Implications for Public Policy and
Inclusive Citizenship
Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Daiva Stasiulis
Rejoinder
to Rhoda Howard-Hassmann Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
Rebuttal
to Abu-Laban and Stasiulis
