Economic Data Archives - Page 2 of 3

30Jun

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Credit Ratings, Economic Data, Energy, Fiscal History, Politics

Ideas, Thoughts, Experiments Episode 4- Conversation with Robert Bhatia

This conversation occurred one week before the provincial election and canvassed three main topics- fiscal and economic policies, and politics. Click here to see the conversation. Robert Bhatia is a retired, long-term Alberta public servant rising to the position of deputy minister. He served as deputy minister in four ministries including Alberta Revenue and Alberta Finance. During his tenure he served on the boards of provincial agencies including the Alberta Investment Management Corporation and the Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation. Since his retirement, he has joined the Local Authorities Pension Plan Board, was chair of the Alberta Balancing Pool and was named as a public member to the Credit Union Central Alberta board of directors where he is now Vice-Chair. He had signi...

6Jun

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Capital Spending, Economic Data, Education, Energy, Government Finances, Investment

Ideas, Thoughts, Experiments- Alberta 2023 Conversation with thought leaders Episode 3- Lindsay Tedds

To watch the conversation go to Youtube This conversation was recorded at 1 p.m. on Thursday 18 May, before the leaders' debate with Professor Lindsay Tedds Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary. Her research interests are eclectic and range from tax policy and public policy design and implementation involving a trans-disciplinary approach to harnesses the strengths of economics, law, public administration, and intersectionality. Our talk ranged widely from income inequality, building an inclusive workplace, the importance of policy stability for investment, societal values, contradictions between the UCP's socialistic spending promises and its free markets' position, education policy, municipal property taxes, environmental liabilities, the challenge of fu...

Watching and Weathering the Withering Rise in Interest Rates

24Apr

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Banks, Economic Data, Financial Institutions, Government Finances

Watching and Weathering the Withering Rise in Interest Rates

Last Thursday I was invited to present some thoughts about the impact of rising of interest rates to the weekly KEI Webinar. The recording can be found here. There was an engaging conversation afterwards which touched on the recent banking crisis, crypto-currencies, government deficits, prospects for a global recession, performance of central banks particularly the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the future of the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. Some humour was intended to be inserted with a showing of the famous Two Johns- Bird and Fortune on the Subprme Crisis The following text are speaking notes which were loosely followed. All date is from the Federal Reserve Board website. "Well thank you Perry for inviting me to provide some commentary around the impact...

Issues to follow in 2023- Analysis and Opinion- Part 2

9Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Economic Data, Employment, Energy, Government Finances, Opinion/Research

Issues to follow in 2023- Analysis and Opinion- Part 2

Corrected 9 January 2023 Sovereignty Act applications- before the election? The application of the Sovereignty Act before the May provincial general election has a lot of moving parts. The Act came into force on 15 December, the date of royal assent. At present Premier Smith is constructing the case along with her finance minister Travis Toews and jobs and economic development minister Brian Jean of a competent government managing finances prudently and attracting investment. In a “Special Economic Report” sent out to UCP supporters on 7 January the Premier highlights that under her leadership 41,500 full time jobs were added in December, most from the private sector. The communication reminds Albertans that they enjoy the highest wages in Canada and the lowest taxes. On the fi...

27Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Economic Data, Energy, Government Finances, Opinion/Research, Politics

Budget 2022: the 2023 election begins

Analysis and Opinion On Thursday afternoon, 24 February Travis Toews tabled his fourth budget. From the standpoint of the United Conservative Party, the budget was an unadulterated triumph. Sure, higher oil prices had something to do with the anticipated surplus in 2022-23 ("a traffic cone could balance Alberta's budget," NDP opposition leader Rachel Notley proclaimed before the speech). admitted Toews to interviewers, but other revenue sources were healthier. By sticking to the fiscal plan as outlined in September 2019 by the MacKinnon panel, the government had done the hard lifting of keeping expenses from growing and attracting investment and Albertans were now reaping the fiscal and economic rewards. In this post, I examine the budget address of Toews, its key messages and its impli...

16Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Demographics, Economic Data, Energy, Society

Some charts

Below are several charts which yield a number of economic insights about the Alberta economy. Interprovincial migration The first chart illustrates the impact of interprovincial migration - people coming to and leaving Alberta since 1961.The chart shows five distinct periods associated with boom and bust conditions in the oil and gas industry. Periods where blue is dominant are boom periods where Alberta was attracting thousands more in-migrants than those leaving the province. These are periods of growing employment and occasional labour shortages. Where the brown colour is dominant, these are quarters when outflow of people exceeded inflows. Employment The chart below shows total employment, all occupations, for the province of Alberta since 2006. Alberta employment grows steadily unti...

28Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Economic Data, Energy, Fiscal History, Government Finances

The Perils of Economic Forecasting in a Commodity-based Economy

In the wake of the "energy settlement" of August 1981 when Trudeau and Lougheed toasted champagne, economists at Alberta Treasury's Budget Planning and Economics group were refreshing their economic forecasts. In the Economic Outlook reproduced below, attention focused on the anticipated mega-projects expected to drive Alberta's economy in the medium term. The Outlook reinforces the notion of Alberta as a single-commodity based economy relying on the construction and engineering sectors to drive economic growth and employment. As the Chart shows, things did not turn out quite what the analysts have thought they would based on econometric models based upon assumptions about the trajectory of various mega-projects. Very shortly after the projection, an inflection point was reached in 1982 ...

8Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

ATB, Budget, Economic Data

Alberta Treasury Branches: Strategic Listening Posts

From the Provincial Archives of Alberta's collection of papers from the late Lou Hyndman comes an interesting case of the economic intelligence capacity of the Province's financial institution. As the Alberta cabinet's anxiety rose following the October 1980 federal budget and National Energy Program, evidence was being gathered on how damaging the federal policies were to the provincial economy. At the end of August 1981 the Office of the Superintendent of Alberta Treasury Branches (at the time the Superintendent of ATB was Fred Sparrow) prepared to update what were called "economic Assessment Reports" aggregated from Treasury Branch managers across the province. ATB logo pin Source: Pinterest The highly summarized five-page report divided the province into three "divisions"- Northern,...

7Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Economic Data, Employment, Energy, Fiscal History

Hyndman papers- preparations for 1981-82 budget

There are a number of interesting things in the following memo to the Priorities Committee of Cabinet taken from the Hyndman papers. It is March 1981 and there is enormous uncertainty which the Lougheed government has not been accustomed to. A global recession going on and the National Energy Program has thrown the Lougheed government curves never faced before including higher levels of unemployment. This was a government that had enjoyed the spoils of office for nearly a decade and those spoils are under assault from outside forces over which it has no control. The response of the federal government ("Ottawa government" or "Trudeau government") has chosen to protect the interests of the consuming provinces- the most populous provinces of Ontario (over 100 seats) and Quebec (75 seats). ...

25Nov

By Bob Ascah1 Comment

Capital Spending, Economic Data, Energy, Environment, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Politics

Presentation to EQUS directors- 23 November

EQUS is a small, co-operative distributor of electricity to 12,000, mostly rural, customers. The organization is the product of a series of mergers of rural electrification co-operatives over the past two decades. EQUS employs about 100 staff with its head office in Innisfail. The presentation, provocatively entitled "Alberta's Crumbling Economic and Fiscal Foundation" builds on concerns about the future health of Alberta's economy in a world where international financial capital places more emphasis on renewable energy solutions. The presentation highlights the pivotal role of capital expenditures of the oil and gas sector which have driven the Alberta economy since 1947. Alberta's gross fixed capital formation (oil and gas, institutional, industrial, residential and non-residential bui...