Who was Barbara Mitchell?
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Quebec’s Tax Competitiveness: A Barrier to Prosperity

As the Quebec government orders a review of the province’s tax system, Quebecers continue to pay some of the highest taxes in North America, finds a new study by Sean Speer, Milagros Palacios, and Feixue Ren. The study, Quebec’s Tax Competitiveness: A Barrier to Prosperity, compares Quebec’s tax rates (personal, corporate, payroll) to other Canadian provinces and American states in 2014, and examines the effect on Quebec’s economic performance over the past 10 years.

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Police and Crime Rates in Canada

Canadian cities such as Winnipeg and Windsor, Ont., burden taxpayers with overstaffed police departments, finds a new study by Livio Di Matteo. The study, Police and Crime Rates in Canada, analyzes policing levels, local crime rates and other socio-economic factors (i.e. median family income, unemployment rates, youth populations) using StatsCan data over a 10-year period to calculate the optimal number of police officers in Canada’s metropolitan areas. The actual number of police officers is compared to the optimal number in each metropolitan area.

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A Failure on Several Counts: Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the best-selling book from French economist Thomas Piketty, is fundamentally flawed, and its Euro-centric view does not apply to North America, says Philip Cross. In his review, published today, Cross targets the major themes in Capital including Piketty’s fixation on inequality and whether it’s destined to increase significantly, and the pessimism engulfing most of Europe today.

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Teacher Incentive Pay that Works

Incentive pay for teachers improves student performance, finds a new study by Vicki Alger. The study, Teacher Incentive Pay that Works, examines several teacher incentive pay programs based on student performance in school systems around the world.

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The cost of running the Canada Pension Plan has more than tripled, the result of transaction fees and external management fees, finds a new study by Philip Cross and Joel Emes. The study, Accounting for the True Cost of the Canada Pension Plan, spotlights the costs of administering the CPP, which includes spending by the CPP Investment Board, a Crown corporation that manages and invests CPP assets, as well as costs incurred by the federal government to run the plan.

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As Labour Day approaches, Canada’s biased labour relations laws are failing workers, restricting their choices, and potentially stunting job growth and investment, finds a new study by Hugh MacIntyre and Charles Lammam. The study, Labour Relations Laws in Canada and the United States, provides an empirical analysis of labour relations laws in the private sector for the 10 Canadian provinces, the Canadian federal government, and the 50 U.S. states.

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An Assessment of the Federal Child Support Guidelines

The federal guidelines mandating child support payments in divorce cases in Canada fail to equitably distribute costs between parents (as per the Divorce Act) and are not supported by economic evidence, concludes a new study by Christopher Sarlo. The study, An Assessment of Federal Child Support Guidelines, critically evaluates the formula that determines the amount of child support in Canada.

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