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"From the editor's desktop" by William Watson Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. "Three editors remember" Tom Kent, Walter Stewart, and Alfred LeBlanc The first issue of Policy Options appeared in March 1980, 20 years ago this month. To mark this anniversary, we asked the magazine's previous editors to provide brief recollections of their time at the magazine. Three were able to do so. Their contributions follow. "Policy Options: The Year One" In its first year, Policy Options published four numbers, comprising 248 pages. What was Canada's policy community concerned about in 1980? Oil pricing, for one thing. In fact, the magazine's very first article was a plea by Tom Kierans that the federal government let the international market determine oil prices. That battle is long since won, but many of 1980's other big issues have a very contemporary ring to them: a forthcoming Quebec referendum, the powerlessness of parliamentary back-benchers, the unrepresentativeness of our representative democracy, the persistent female wage gap, the demographic decline of francophone Canada, Joe Clark's virtues - or otherwise - as Tory leader, and so on. We kick off an anniversary year of retrospective reprints with a selection of the best of year one. Interview with IRPP President Hugh Segal On June 1 of last year, Hugh Segal took over as President of the IRPP. He succeeded Monique Jérôme-Forget, president since 1991, who the previous November was elected to Québec's National Assembly and is currently its opposition finance critic. 20 years ago, the first issue of Policy Options contained an interview with then-IRPP president, now-senator Michael Kirby. As a bookend to that first interview, and to see what plans the new President has for the Institute, William Watson interviewed Hugh Segal on January 19, 2000. Here is an edited transcript of their conversation. "The poverty of economics: Some advice for advisors" by Neil Cameron Economists would do well to acquire a little more humility. Along with other social scientists, they have risen with the specialization and professionalization of academic studies that fashioned the universities of the 20th century, and have increasingly come to dominate discussions of public policy. Yet their policy conclusions, presented with a patina of scientific objectivity, have been peculiarly subject to fad. Moreover, their most successful public spokesmen have relied far less on professional expertise than on the philosophical depth, historical background, and literary flair most effectively provided by a good liberal education. Economists would be better off, and the rest of us too, if they deliberately spent more time studying widely, rather than narrowly, and directed more of their students to do the same. "What's the cost of the foreign property limit in Canada's pension rules?" by Kevin Milligan and Michael Smart Foreign investment by Canadian pension plans is currently restricted to 20 per cent of the book value of the plan's portfolio. This policy increases non-diversifiable risk in portfolio returns, which entails costs for pension plan beneficiaries. To estimate these costs, we examine the effects of an early-1990s increase in the limit on the performance of mutual funds that had been constrained by it. The evidence suggests the limit has had a significant negative effect on risk-adjusted returns to retirement savings in Canada. We conclude that an increase in the limit from 20 to 30 per cent would raise average annual returns by 0.31 percentage points, or $1.4 billion annually. "Regulators and their conflicts of interest" by Brian Flemming The financial conflicts of interest that politicians occasionally find themselves in, and that so entertain the press, are minor compared to the conflicts their departments enter into by routinely both regulating and financing, insuring and promoting industry. From the Westray mine disaster, through aquaculture, to genetically-modified foods, this conflict in roles only leads to trouble. If governments want to regulate, they should only regulate. If they want to do more, they should hand over the regulatory job to some other agency. "Child-support guidelines and the welfare of children" by Vicky Barham, Rose Anne Devlin and Chantal LaCasse The child-support payment guidelines that became law in 1997 have produced consistency across non-custodial parents. Fathers (mainly) who are in similar economic circumstances pay similar amounts. But the guidelines are neither adequate (in that they generally don't meet the needs of children) nor fair, since they typically result in disparities between the custodial and non-custodial households' standards of living. A system that considered the family's wealth as well as its income would come closer to meeting these objectives. "Canada and the FTAA: The hemispheric bloc temptation" by Jean Daudelin and Maureen Appel Molot The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) initiative may have made sense in the early 1990s, before it was clear there would be a WTO. But it offers only minor economic benefits for Canada; support for it is less than enthusiastic in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico and even in the hemisphere's corporate sectors; it may well increase inter-bloc trade tensions that would result in even further Canadian dependence on the US market; and it presents yet another significant demand on our already-stressed trade negotiators. So why are we such gung-ho supporters of it? "Table for three: How US negotiators would play Quebec separation" by A.R. Riggs, Tom Velk and Harold M. Waller Canadians on both sides of the separation debate tend to assume that an eventual break-up of Canada would be an internal Canadian matter, to be decided by Canadians alone. We forget that a third party, the United States, has a compelling strategic and economic interest in what happens in the northern half of North America. How would the American negotiating team approach the discussions? The way American negotiating teams always do: with their eyes firmly fixed on domestic us politics. The results for what remained of Canada would not necessarily be pretty. "There is a northern Crown" by Kirk Cameron Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. "Strengthening Canadian Democracy: The Halifax Forum" As part of its new research programme on "strengthening Canadian democracy," IRPP is holding a series of public forums across the country on the future of our governing institutions. Here is an edited transcript of a town hall held in Halifax, November 15, 1999. "Fax from the fringe" by Jim Stanford Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. "Review article: Leaving the reserve, moving to town" by John Richards Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. |
