Canada’s Index of Wellbeing: A Good Start
… there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age of leisure and of abundance without a dread. For we have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially...
The Vancouver Tax – A Step in the Right Direction
Bubbles have quite a few things in common, but housing bubbles have a spectacular thing in common, and that is every one of them is considered unique and different. Jeremy Grantham I don’t know if the new 15% tax on foreigners buying property in Vancouver will have the desired effect. But Nevinomics...
Raising the Retirement Age: An Unconscionable Way to Soak the Poor
It proposes, by means of old-age pensions, to help those who have reached the age of retirement to give up their jobs and thus give to the younger generation greater opportunities for work and to give to all, old and young alike, a feeling of security as they look toward old age. – Franklin D....
Continuous Income Smoothing
The world is a complex place today, and more and more we seem to live multiple lives. Few people (and even fewer in the future) tread a linear path of education, career, family, and location. Basically, nobody knows what the future will bring. In this type of uncertain environment, a key advantage for the individual...
The Flourishing Index
What is the economy for? In Nevinomics view, the economy should be constructed to maximize individual Flourishing. Here is one obvious policy suggestion: Canada needs a Flourishing index. If Flourishing is our objective, we are not going to improve it unless we decide how to define it more specifically, and then measure it. At the moment,...
More Infrastructure
If you want the economy to work well, a lot of pieces need to come together: high social trust, the rule of law and property rights, and excellent public services among them. Critical to the effective coming together of these components is, of course, an effective infrastructure. (See The Flywheel Effect) One consequence of the...
Optimal RRSP Portfolio
Canada has a well-designed retirement policy for individuals: the RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan). Basically, this allows you to save up 18% of your income, deduct it from this year’s taxes, and then have it taxed when withdrawn. There are various guidelines on withdrawals, but compared to other jurisdictions, withdrawal rules are relatively lenient and...
For Canada – The Best Nation on the Planet … But We Can Do Better
While I grew up in Canada in a mid-sized city and raised in modest circumstances, I have had the rare privilege to see much of the world. Apart from spent ten formative work years in Toronto (from age 24-35), since the age of 18, I have had 22 years living in the USA, UK, France,...
