Business Red Tape and the Economy

How much does bureaucracy hurt incomes? A lot. Since 2006, the World Bank has compiled the Ease of Doing Business Index – a measure of a country’s regulatory burden across 12 critical areas of running a company that affect virtually all businesses, regardless of sector. But how exactly does bureaucracy distort the economy, and how […]

The Macroeconomic Impacts of Industrial Regulation

How can governments analyse the broader economic effects of proposed regulations in an interconnected economy? Governments change hundreds if not thousands of regulations and laws every year, ostensibly to protect citizens’ health and safety and to assure the proper functioning of free markets. These regulations are only effective with compliance, which necessarily means that businesses […]

The Double Diamond Design Process for Policy

How a framework from product and service design would help policymakers find the right programs and regulations to solve societal problems Through my many years working with regulators and policymakers, I have heard that they often struggle at the earliest stages of designing regulation. Often the impetus to develop a new program or regulation starts […]

Reducing Regulatory Red-Tape Prevents Corruption

Regulations, like building codes and permitting, are ostensibly designed to protect the safety and well-being of citizens. These licences and permits ensure that buildings are safe for its occupants. However, the lengthy process puts critical financial and economic power in the hands of a few bureaucrats.

Monitoring and Evaluation: Bad Indicators lead to Bad Policy Making

Justin Peters over at Slate asks a very good question, “Will Arresting People Who Aren’t Very Drunk Reduce Drunk-Driving Fatalities?“. In regulation development, if a previous restricting policy policy did little to meet the policy objective, it makes little sense to make an even stricter policy. A stricter policy will just create more costs or […]

The Argument for Better Access to AEDs

I recently took my very first First Aid course with CPR and AED certification for St. John’s ambulance and I was astounded to learn how effective Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) are at saving lives. In cases of cardiac arrest, an AED can double the rate of survival from an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (Weisfeldt et. al.). […]

The Cost of Regulatory Opacity

The Canadian government’s recent blocking of the sale of Progress Energy Resources to Malaysian state-owned Petronas has raised calls to act on the vagueness of the “net benefit” test applied to mergers in Canada over $331 million. The lack of clear criteria for this net benefit test has serious economic implications for investment in Canada. […]

The Possible End of the Euro in Peripheral Countries

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced yesterday, the only way forward for the Euro is for a full political and fiscal union of the member countries. With small peripheral Euro economies, the need for political and fiscal integration was apparent from the start. However, lacking political will, it was impossible to implement. Now with anti-EU […]

Canada’s Brain Gain

To a roomful of academics in August, Stephen Harper announced the end of Canada’s “brain drain” – the end of highly skilled professionals leaving Canada for the U.S. and other countries. Although Canada’s “brain drain” was likely overblown even during the height of its hype (Here is a Stats Can report on the issue from […]

Why Isn’t Obama Considering a Consumption Tax?

Obama’s debt-reduction plan is unlikely to pass Republican-dominated congress because of its focus on higher taxes for the rich, ie. those making over $250,000 a year, as well as higher investment taxes. In total, Obama hopes to take $1.5 trillion more from wealthy Americans. Unfortunately, higher income taxes reduce the incentive to work and higher […]