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| EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.Breaking the Shackles: Deregulating Canadian Industry
This book contains a series of papers commissioned for the Economics of Regulation and Deregulation Conference held at the University of Lethbridge from September 21 to 23, 1989.
Breaking the Shackles begins with an outline of the deregulatory program and a summary of the important theories of regulation. It then identifies progress in rail and truck transportation, incomplete but valuable deregulation in the airline industry, modest improvements in telecommunications, and substantial progress in the oil and gas industry. However, the book also reveals that the deregulatory process has barely begun in agriculture. Another chapter focuses on the financial services sector whish is hampered by a confused and potentially damaging regulatory situation.
Finally, the book examines rent control. Because this law attenuates the property rights of landlords, it destroys incentives for maintaining and adding to the existing housing stock. This study concludes that the rental housing market, particularly in Ontario, seems to have entered a rigid and permanent regulatory regime.
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Walter Block
Walter Block, Ph.D., is Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics, Loyola University, New Orleans.
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George Lermer
George Lermer is the Dean of the Faculty of Management of the University of Lethbridge. George Lermer received a B.Sc.from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.A. and Ph.D. from McGill University. From 1962 to 1974, he taught at various Canadian universities including Concordia University and the University of Waterloo. He was senior economist at the Economic Council of Canada (1974-76), studying the regulation of financial institutions and markets and contributing to Efficiency and Regulation, in preparation for the revision of The Bank Act. As director of the Resources Branch, Bureau of Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs Canada (1976-81), he specialized in the enforcement of the Combines Investigation Act in the agriculture and energy industries. In 1980 he was seconded to the Privy Council of Canada, Federal-Provincial Office of the Task Force for the Renewal of Federalism. He has extensive experience as a consulting economist with government departments and private clients. He has advised clients on trade practices, competition policy, industrial structure, and economic regulation, especially of agriculture. The author and editor of several books and numerous articles, his most recent publication is AECL-An Evaluation of a Crown Corporation as a Strategist in a Global Entrepreneurial Industry (Economic Council of Canada).… Read more