bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Corporate Saving Behaviour
Authors: Smith David C. 
Published: June 2006

The expected behaviour of aggregate corporate saving is an unsettled problem that has received considerably less attention in economic research than personal saving behaviour. In part this has reflected the rather uncertain status of the corporation as a separate behavioural entity in much of economic analysis. Keynes in the General Theory emphasized personal saving behaviour, and in a brief discussion of saving by corporations, governments, and other institutions he suggested rather obscurely that their motives for saving were “largely analogous to, but not identical with, those actuating individuals.’ Keynes's neglect of corporate saving was not new in the development of economic analysis, and H. G. Johnson has argued that it “reflects Marshall's inability to integrate the modern corporation into his system of economic analysis.”An attempt to sort out some of the significant determinants of corporate saving is particularly important for two broad questions in economics. First, is the cyclical behaviour of corporate saving an important stabilizer? This question involves a study not only of the marginal relationship between changes in planned corporate saving and corporate income but also of the interdependence between planned corporate saving and planned corporate investment. Secondly, does the behaviour of corporate saving in our society adversely affect the allocation of economic resources? This question is important for the position one takes on whether or not government policy should be designed to increase the distribution of corporate income and thus to increase the channelling of new corporate funds through the capital market.
Technological Progress, Investment, and Full-Employment Growth
Authors: Cragg J. G. 
Published: June 2006

Technological progress and investment are considered generally to be among the crucial determinants of economic growth; both have been prominent accompaniments of experienced growth. It seems likely that they are closely related, and a way of seeing this relationship is desirable. This paper seeks to develop a theoretical framework to help examine their roles in the growth of output, to show how they influence the paths which output and other economic variables trace out through time and to lead towards a more general theory of growth. However, no such general theory is developed. Many factors relevant to the course of economic growth are not considered, especially those concerned with what would happen if the economy moved away from full employment. Consequently, the analysis is not intended to be immediately relevant to actual conditions, but merely to throw some light on the relationships between technological progress and investment.The analysis is related closely to the work of Nicolas Kaldor. However, the model contains a more flexible treatment of the effects of technological progress and the willingness to invest, in order that we may be better able to examine, in a less rigid framework, the effects of past courses of investment and technological progress on present developments in the economy. The variables of the model consist of a few aggregates expressed in real terms and we shall not be concerned with the method of their measurement.
Time Series Analysis by Electronic Computers: A Report on Some Recent Applications at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics
Authors: Crozier R. B. , Darcovich W. 
Published: June 2006

Economists and statisticians are gradually amassing new knowledge of economic processes and enlarging the range of data which provide the underpinnings of their craft. Since the end of the Second World War, a number of new statistical tools have been developed for measuring the performance of the economy, and a good deal of new quantitative information on the structure and behaviour of the economic system has been collected. Among these new tools have been developments in the field of social accounting, and new and improved techniques for isolating and studying fluctuations in the business cycle. It is with the latter question that this paper is concerned-the decomposition of time series into their trend-cycle, seasonal, and residual elements. While the work in this field in Canada in the early 1950's was initially focused on measuring cyclical fluctuations in the quarterly national accounts, it has long since evolved a full-fledged life of its own, and a general programme of time series analysis has been under way at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics since 1955. The recent application of electronic computers to the problem is rapidly transforming the entire field.The present paper has a three-fold aim: to review the rationale of time series analysis; to give an account of the background and status of the work at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics; and to provide a brief outline of the electronic computer programme now in use in this area.
An Ombudsman Scheme for Canada
Authors: Rowat Donald C. 
Published: June 2006

There has been considerable discussion recently in the English-speaking world about the office of Ombudsman, or complaints commissioner, in the Nordic countries. The present paper first explains the need for the office, and shows how it meets this need. We then deal with arguments that have been raised against transplanting the institution to other countries, consider some problems regarding its functions and powers, and finally discuss the specific problem of its application to Canada.Briefly stated, the argument for the Ombudsman scheme derives from the fact that all democratic countries in the twentieth century have experienced a shift from the laissez-faire to the positive state. The accompanying tremendous growth in the range and complexity of government activities has brought with it the need to grant increasing powers of discretion to the executive side of government; and as Dicey has warned us, “Wherever there is discretion, there is room for arbitrariness.” It is quite possible nowadays for a citizen's rights to be accidentally crushed by the vast juggernaut of the government's administrative machine. In this age of the welfare state, thousands of administrative decisions are made each year by governments or their agencies, many of them by lowly officials; and if some of these decisions are arbitrary or unjustified, there is no easy way for the ordinary citizen to gain redress.
The Protestant Ethic as a General Precondition for Economic Development
Authors: Hansen Niles M. 
Published: June 2006

Problems of economic development have inevitably stimulated interest in human motivation as it pertains to economic action. In this regard, frequent allusion has been made to Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. This paper argues that understanding of Weber's thesis concerning both the Protestant ethic and capitalism has been frequently erroneous or incomplete, and that when his thought concerning the metaphysical foundations of economic rationality is seen in an adequate context its implications for economic motivation and development problems are more important than has been generally acknowledged. More specifically, the present analysis holds that Weber's basic ideas concerning the practical economic effects of the economic actor's value orientation are valid within the framework of any given economic system.The first two sections attempt to clarify Weber's thought concerning the nature of the Protestant ethic and its relation to capitalism. The remainder of the article deals with the contemporary significance of Weber's insight for economic development in Soviet Russia and in the newly-developing countries.
Investment Policy for Economic Development: Some Lessons of the Communist Experience
Authors: Fallenbuchl Z. M. 
Published: June 2006

Communist experience in the field of investment policy for economic development is particularly instructive in connection with such problems as the determination of the rate of investment which results in the highest possible rate of growth; balanced versus unbalanced development; and the role of the rate of interest in the efficient allocation of investment funds. Our purpose is to examine this experience in relation to the first of the above problems. Since the three problems overlap, however, the paper relates to some extent to the other two.It is suggested that the investment experience of Communist countries is relevant for developing countries in general. Although the results of various policies have been conditioned by the specific institutional framework of the Communist countries, they seem to depend also on the logic of the process of economic growth and of the basic economic problem of allocating scarce resources. Communist economists have been forced to admit that some aspects of economic development are as difficult under socialism as they are under capitalism, although until recently this fact was consistently denied. It is also possible, as has been suggested by Professor T. Haavelmo, that the process of economic growth can be seen most clearly when it is studied in a centrally planned economy, where major complications of a market economy are absent. Moreover, some features of the Communist system reflect the leaders' desire to achieve fast economic growth, and such measures as a high rate of forced saving and a large volume of public investment may be found in any country trying to accelerate its development.
Canadian Anti-Combines Administration, 1952–1960
Authors: Rosenbluth G. , Thorburn H. G. 
Published: June 2006

Important changes were made in the Combines Investigation Act in 1952, and again in 1960; the intervening period provides a suitable unit for the study of operations under the Act. We shall try to account for the changes that were made in 1952 and for the manner in which the Act was administered thereafter, in terms of some basic propositions about the process of government in Canada, which are well known though perhaps not universally accepted. We conclude with a brief discussion of the 1960 revision of the Act.Canadian governments of both parties must try to avoid policies that will antagonize large blocks of voters. They must also steer clear of policies that will lose them the support of substantial business interests, not only because they depend on business groups for campaign funds, but also because the environment in which government operates is influenced, in a great variety of ways, by the actions and attitudes of the major business groups. Many policy decisions, particularly in non-economic fields, do not involve a conflict between these two objectives. Where there is a conflict, the policy decisions that emerge represent a compromise.
Financial Alternatives to International Commodity Stabilization
Authors: Swerling Boris C. 
Published: June 2006

Modern societies apply certain concepts of the “social minimum” in sustaining domestic groups whose incomes are either cyclically or chronically depressed. Presumably, postwar programs of international foreign aid reflect an extension of this attitude. The first major effort in that direction, the European Recovery Program, was brilliantly successful in providing the base upon which Europe built its impressive economic performance of the past dozen years. The very success of the Marshall Plan, however, leads to a certain impatience with the comparatively unsatisfactory results of the more recent aid efforts—those directed towards accelerating economic growth in the less developed countries (LDC's). At the very time when the United States Congress is becoming increasingly disenchanted with foreign aid, the rising political power of the LDC's in the various agencies of the United Nations has been adding to the external pressures for an enlarged aid effort, as evidenced by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development held in Geneva from March to June this year.The newer focus of foreign aid raises particularly difficult problems both of diagnosis and of prescription. On the one hand, disturbances arising from cyclical instability within individual LDC's are often compounded by those associated with structural maladjustment, and it is by no means an easy task to distinguish between these separate sources of trouble. On the other hand, because primary commodities loom so large in the export trade of the LDC's, the industrial countries can be led (by a combination of good intentions and political blackmail) to accept, in the name of foreign aid, commodity policies that are ill-conceived and self-defeating. It is just as important to resist the implementation of unwise policies as it is to develop new institutional devices appropriate to current circumstances.
The Short-Run Effects of Instalment Credit Control
Authors: Chiang Alpha C. 
Published: June 2006

In an earlier paper, I presented an analysis of the intermediate-run effects of instalment credit control, that is, the effects prevailing after the new credit terms have fully replaced the old ones. Although brief reference was made there to the effects of control in the short run, that is, in the time periods immediately following the change in credit terms, yet several interesting questions regarding the short run had to be ignored because of the scope of that paper. One may ask, for example: Does the down-payment effect tend to grow or diminish in strength from one period to the next during the transition from old credit terms to new ones? What about the maturity effect? Do these effects change with time, if at all, at a steady rate? In one direction only, or with reversals)? And how will different types of consumer reaction to new credit terms, as reflected in the amount of credit purchases, modify the down-payment and maturity effects, especially when there is perversity? These questions are important because for purposes of credit control policy, the short-run effects are in many cases more relevant than the intermediate-run effects. The present paper seeks to answer these questions.As the questions themselves suggest, the following discussion will be principally concerned with the delineation of the time paths of effects of credit term changes. In this sense, then, the paper pertains to the realm of “dynamics,” in contrast to the comparative-statics orientation of the earlier article. As in the earlier paper, I shall assume (a) a constant rate of growth of credit purchases before control, (b) uniform down-payment and maturity terms on all credit purchases, (c) straight-line amortization of all instalment debts, and (d) the absence of secondary effects. But instead of assuming that new credit terms will always result in a new (fixed) rate of growth of instalment purchases, I shall also consider several other types of consumer reaction. Finally, to make the analysis more general, the concept “marginal propensity to cut outlays for down payments” will be introduced, to supplement the “marginal propensity to cut outlays for instalments” used in the other paper.
Canadian Automotive Protection: Content Provisions, The Bladen Plan, And Recent Tariff Changes
Authors: Wonnacott Paul 
Published: June 2006

In the past several years, a Royal Commission has reported on the automotive industry and a number of changes have been made in tariffs on automobiles and parts. Although the changes of late 1962 and late 1963 differed in detail from the recommendations of Dean Bladen in his Royal Commission report, they introduced in an alternative form the major innovation recommended by the report, namely, export incentives. By encouraging exports, and particularly exports of parts, the government hoped to stimulate Canadian employment, improve the current account balance, and contribute to the efficiency of the Canadian industry by making possible longer production runs.Issues of great complexity were introduced by both the Bladen recommendations and the recent changes. Evaluation of their probable effects is made doubly difficult because of the previously existing system of import duties compounded with Canadian content requirements. Nevertheless, it is important that a detailed study be made of recent innovations, particularly as the three-year limit on the changes of late 1963 has made it clear that there will be a major review of policy in the near future. American objections to the innovations, and the possibility of retaliation, have further increased the importance of an evaluation.
La Transformation Du Parti Liberal Quebecois
Authors: Comeau Paul-Andre 
Published: June 2006

La science politique n'a pas encore réussi à élaborer de grands ensembles théoriques. A vrai dire, les politicologues doivent se contenter de quelques généralisations, assimilables tout au plus à des hypothèses de travail d'une nature bien particulière, de typologies destinées à faciliter le dépouillement des données politiques. Signalons à la volée, les multiples typologies des régimes politiques, les essais de classification de « l'homme politique » et les théories des « élites ». Toutefois, devant la nécessité de développer et de multiplier démarches et recherches en vue d'échaffauder un début de théorie, il nous paraît intéressant, utile peut-être, de tenter de découvrir la dynamique qui agite et soutient les divers éléments d'une telle typologie.Ainsi, la typologie des partis politiques, mise au point par Maurice Duverger. Le juriste français a regroupé autour de deux principaux pôles les divers types de partis politiques que connaît le monde contemporain. Les « partis de notables », groupes restreints composés de personnalités en vue dans un milieu et dont l'objectif unique se définit par l'organisation des campagnes électorales, se dressent contre les « partis de masse », créés par les mouvements socialistes européens et destinés à rallier tous les sympathisants d'une même cause politique, de façon permanente. Bien sûr, Duverger reconnaît la possibilité de multiples variantes, sur un continuum reliant ces deux pôles extrêmes.
A Contradiction in Hobbes' Analysis of Sovereignty
Authors: Williamson Colwyn 
Published: June 2006

In this article, I argue that there is a fundamental contradiction in Hobbes' political theory: the contradiction is between the method (which may be called “realism”) used in the deduction of the commonwealth and sovereign, and the sovereign's alleged obligation to obey the laws of nature. In order to explain how the contradiction arises, I begin by giving a brief account of the laws of nature in Hobbes, and the way in which he deduces the necessity for a sovereign. I then discuss a number of possible ways of avoiding the contradiction, and find them all unsatisfactory. Finally, I propose a solution to the problem. This solution involves some criticisms of Professor C. B. Macpherson's analysis of Hobbes, and also has some bearing on the relationship of the thought of Marx to more orthodox political theory.In De Corpore Politico, Hobbes says that the laws of nature are “the dictates of natural reason … moral laws, because they concern the manners and conversation of men, one towards another; so are they also divine laws in respect of the author thereof. …” The laws of nature, then, can be seen in three ways: as rational, as moral, and as divine. It is because he says that they are both moral laws and dictates of reason, in that reason dictates on the basis of certain facts, that Hobbes is said to be guilty of the naturalistic fallacy, of attempting to deduce values from facts. And he calls them divine in order to emphasize that they cannot, according to his own account of law, properly be called laws at all except they be commands, in this case the commands of God. “And forasmuch as law, to speak properly, is a command, and these dictates, as they proceed from nature, are not commands, they are not therefore called laws, in respect of nature, but in respect of the author of nature, God Almighty.” Hobbes gives various explanations of just why the laws are moral, and all of them are unsatisfactory in one way or another. In the above passage he says that they are moral because they concern the manners and conversation of men, one towards another; but not everything which concerns the manners and conversation of men is moral.
Taxpayer Participation under the Registered Retirement Savings Program
Authors: Schoeplein Robert N. 
Published: June 2006

The Registered Retirement Savings Plan, adopted in 1957, afforded Canadian taxpayers a new deduction from assessable income under the individual income tax. Qualified participants in this program may reduce current tax liabilities by their contributions to personal retirement savings accounts. This tax-inducement scheme was somewhat unusual, and “representative” taxpayer response would therefore occur only after a time lapse for individual evaluation of program advantages. Sufficient time has now expired, however, to permit a study of program performance.Taxpayer response should be judged by reference to program objectives. Parliamentary discussions indicate that the measure had two objectives. The first was to restore an element of fairness, or uniform treatment, to the taxation of retirement funds. The second was to reinforce the social policy of fostering retirement saving in the private sector. The particular construction of the retirement saving scheme and the consequent taxpaper response seem, however, to have led to a failure to achieve either objective.Taxpayer participation in 1962 is analysed in this article. Registered retirement savings deductions in that year were declared on only 1.49 per cent of all taxable returns filed by individuals under 65 years of age. Few taxpayers, then, utilize this deduction, and those who do are concentrated in the higher income classes.
The Roots of French-Canadian Discontent
Authors: Kwavnick D. 
Published: June 2006

It is possible that the current “crisis” in French-English relations in Canada has been helped to its present pitch through a simple lack of understanding of the roots of French-Canadian discontent on the part of English Canadians, rather than as the result of a clash between irreconcilable ends. Two of the most common manifestations of this lack of understanding are to be seen in the lines of argument so often employed by English Canadians in discussing constitutional questions. The first has a long and honourable history, going back at least as far as 1887. Moreover, it enjoys the distinction of having seen active service down through the years on both sides in the various English-French and Dominion-provincial disputes.The error in question is that of basing constitutional arguments upon an interpretation of the intentions of the Fathers of Confederation. This basis of argument has been invoked by both the compact theorists, among the upholders of provincial rights, and the “Judicial Committee ruined our Constitution” school among the centralists. (This word is used in a non-pejorative sense, although it seems to have acquired pejorative overtones in recent years.) The Fathers of Confederation were practical politicians attempting to deal with the practical political problems of the mid-nineteenth century, and it was with reference to these problems and to the contemporary value systems of the various communities of British North America that they conceived the series of compromises embodied in the British North America Act. To credit the Confederation settlement of a century ago with eternal validity is to credit the Fathers with a prescience which they simply did not possess.