Long-Term Economic Hardship and Non-Mainstream Voting in Canada

Canadian voting behaviour from 1979 to 2000 is examined by relating long-term economic changes to support for “non-mainstream” parties, defined as parties other than the Liberals or Progressive Conservatives. This long-term perspective is unique, in that standard economic voting research focuses mostly on how short-term economic changes affect support levels for the incumbent. In order to illustrate the effects of long-term economic decline, federal voting results are related with short- and long-term economic data, namely unemployment and labour-force participation rates, all aggregated at the provincial level. The pooled data produces results that confirm the relevance of short-term changes to explain support for the incumbent party, while support for non-mainstream parties is, instead, explained by long-term economic changes

Military Aid to the Civil Authority in the mid-19th Century New Brunswick

During the mid–19th century, the role of the military in New Brunswick began to change. Although its primary function remained defence against invasion, the civil power called on it with increasing frequency; first the British regulars and later the militia assisted in capacities ranging from fighting fires to policing. Nevertheless, as New Brunswick changed from colony to province, the militia did not automatically replace the imperial garrison. Civil authorities were reluctant to call on it, and volunteers assumed this role only after the regulars departed in 1869. This article first examines the types of disorder that occurred between the 1830s and the 1870s. It next considers the 18 known instances during this period when the civil authorities called out British regulars and provincial (ie., county–based) militias to aid them. It finaly looks at factors that discouraged such use of the militia

Protecting Fundamental Labor Rights: Lessons from Canada for the United States

This paper examines the decline in unionization in the United States that began to occur in about 1960. While various explanations have been put forward to explain this -- with many focusing on some form of structural changes to the economy or to the workforce, usually related to globalization or technological progress -- this paper focuses on the role that employer opposition to unions has played, together with relatively weak labor law. In order to fully flesh out the experience of the United States, it looks to the experience of Canada as the country most similar to it

The Market Reaction to Trump\u27s Trade War

This event study looks at the market reaction to the global trade tensions that began in the first half of 2018. The events regarding new developments around the use of tariffs are organized in chronological order, and the stocks of certain impacted companies are looked at to see if they were positively or negatively affected by the news. To summarize the market reaction to tariffs, I use a zero cost portfolio consisting of long positions in those expected to be positively impacted and short positions in those expected to be negatively impacted. If this portfolio sees a larger return on the day of a given event, it is considered that the market reacted more severely to the news. For a further breakdown, the events are grouped together by the countries involved with the event and by the type of event. I look at tariffs imposed by the United States, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and China. The event types include announcements of plans for new tariffs, announcements of exemptions from tariffs, and the formal implementation of tariffs. I find that the most significant market reaction took place in the early months of the trade war, which is evident in that there appears to be the widest spread in returns between those positively and those negatively impacted during this time. As the trade war dragged on in 2018, tariffs were imposed on a broader range of products, and the market reaction became less severe. This information could be useful to traders and asset managers going forward as it appears much of the impact of these tariffs is already reflected in stock prices

Heterogeneous Firm-Level Responses to Trade Liberalisation: A Test Using Stock Price Reactions

This paper presents novel empirical evidence on key predictions of heterogeneous firm models by examining stock market reactions to the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989 (CUSFTA). Using the uncertainty surrounding the agreement's ratification, I show that the pattern of abnormal returns of Canadian manufacturing …firms was broadly consistent with the predictions of a class of models based on Melitz (2003). Increases in the likelihood of ratification led to stock market gains of exporting firms relative to non-exporters. Moreover, gains were higher in sectors with larger cuts in U.S. import tariffs. Decreases in the likelihood of ratification led to opposite stock market reactions. Results for the impact of Canadian tariff reductions are less conclusive but most specifications suggest that exporters also gained relative to non-exporters in response to such reductions. Translating stock market gains into implied profit changes, I find that CUSFTA increased expected per-period profits of exporters by around 6-7% relative to non-exporters.Heterogeneous firm models, stock market event studies, Canada-U.S. free tradeagreement

Labor Relations Law in North America

[Excerpt] In establishing their Agreement on Labor Cooperation as a complement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico accepted the fact that each nation had evolved a different system of labor law and administration. They agreed that those systems should continue to evolve independently within each sovereign jurisdiction. But they also recognized the extremely important fact that these three systems were based on underlying principles which were held in common and which could be articulated. These are the 11 Labor Principles of the NAALC. Each principle defines a sector of labor law, which is given concrete expression by the statutes and jurisprudence of the different jurisdictions. The parties to the NAALC undertake solemn obligations to ensure that their laws in these sectors are effectively enforced. Thus all competitors in the North American Free Trade area will operate under the law in regard to labor matters, administered openly and consistently. Such is a major objective of the NAALC. The objective of this publication by the Commission for Labor Cooperation is to enable the public at large in North America, and not just specialists in comparative labor law, to know simply and clearly what those different labor law regimes are and how they are administered. The NAALC relies primarily on the public to draw attention to any deficiencies which may occur in regard to labor law administration. It is thus imperative that the public have ready access to the content of the laws and how they are meant to apply, organized following the schema of the NAALC

Political Competition and Convergence to Fundamentals: With Application to the Political Business Cycle and the Size of Government

We address the problem of how to investigate whether economics, or politics, or both, matter in the explanation of public policy. The problem is first posed in a particular context by uncovering a political business cycle (using Canadian data for 130 years) and by taking up the challenge to make this fact meaningful by finding a transmission mechanism through actual public choices. Since the cycle is in real growth, and it is reasonable to suppose that public expenditure would be involved, the central task then is to investigate the role of (partisan and opportunistic) political factors, as opposed to economic fundamentals, in the evolution of government size.We proceed by asking whether the data allow us to distinguish between the convergence and the nonconvergence hypotheses. Convergence means that political competition forces public spending to converge in the long run to a level dictated by endowments, tastes and technology. Nonconvergence is taken to mean that political factors other than the degree of political competition prevent convergence to that long run. The general idea here, one that may be applied in any situation where the key issue is the role of economics versus politics over time, is that an overtly political factor can be said to play a distinct role in the evolution of public choices if it can be shown to lead to departures from a dynamic path defined by the evolution of economic fundamentals in a competitive political system.public expenditure, size of government, long run versus short run, opportunism, partisanship, political competition, cointegration