Canada’s Middle Class—Forever Further Behind?

Author(s):  
Lars Osberg

This chapter highlights Canada’s distinctive trajectory of inequality and living standards. Inequality rose markedly because real incomes grew strongly at the very top but stagnated for most of the rest of the income distribution until the resource-led boom of the 2000s. The importance of macroeconomic policy is brought out, in particular the role of monetary policy in choking off growth in order to keep inflation low, at the cost of substantial unemployment. The growth in incomes at the very top may be underestimated by the available estimates, while the weakening of redistribution via the tax and transfer systems has accentuated the trend to greater inequality. The consequences of a sustained ‘squeeze’ on middle incomes and living standards are spelled out and the implications for the future, in the absence of a major shift in the growth strategy, are discussed.

2005 ◽  
Vol 08 (04) ◽  
pp. 707-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donghyun Park ◽  
Junggun Oh

Korea's financial crisis of 1997–1998 was brought about by the unsustainable combination of large capital inflows and an inefficient financial system. The Bank of Korea contributed to the crisis primarily through its failures as the regulator of the financial system rather than as the conductor of monetary policy. Our paper explores the role of the two major monetary policy reforms Korea has implemented in response to the crisis — the establishment of a new financial regulator and the adoption of inflation targeting — in Korea's efforts to build a stronger and more efficient financial system, thereby preventing crises in the future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itamar Drechsler ◽  
Alexi Savov ◽  
Philipp Schnabl

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of research on the transmission of monetary policy through the financial system, fueled in part by empirical findings showing that monetary policy affects asset prices and the financial system in ways not explained by the New Keynesian paradigm. In particular, monetary policy appears to impact risk premia in stock and bond prices and to effectively control the liquidity premium in the economy (the cost of holding liquid assets). We review these findings and recent theories proposed to explain them, and we outline a conceptual framework that unifies them. The framework revolves around the central role of liquidity in risk sharing and explains how monetary policy governs its production and use within the financial sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 327-338
Author(s):  
Muhammad Saleem Qazi ◽  
Dr. Muhammad Adil ◽  
Dr. Saima Batool ◽  
Yasir Khan

The aim of this research is to investigate role of Microfinance in Poverty alleviation. Primary data was used in this research and was collected through personally administered questionnaires from 150 respondents. Results showed that most of the respondents were in favor of the Khud Kafalat scheme because it helped them in increasing their living standards and standard of education of their children due to establishing small scale businesses or expanding existing businesses. Moreover, Khud Kafalat Scheme has a very important role in Poverty alleviation and increased their gross monthly income. Furthermore, their satisfaction can also be depicted from the fact that although they observed no change in their employees’ condition but on individual level, most of them, were still in favor of applying again for the loan, if needed, in the future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 179-188
Author(s):  
Shahabuddin

English: Venugopal has a distinct identity in Hindi poetry. The atmosphere of disillusionment and the social status quo had an effect on your poem. Oriented towards Akavita. But soon you realized his regression. As a result, progressives were oriented towards the stream. The land of reality shaped beautiful dreams of the future. Your poem conveys the hopes, dreams, feelings, sensations of the common man. It also exposes the middle class weaknesses while being sympathetic towards the neglected workers and is a proponent of action against the power. It shares the golden dreams of the future, in retaliation for its oppression-exploitation-violence. It has the content of strategy and tactics for the youth taking action from the power. Sometimes it is very suggestive and expresses socio-political reality in an interesting way. Where the dialogue style is present in it, its symbolism is multidimensional. This poem also questions the role of media by taking a sarcastic pose. Hindi: वेणुगोपाल हिन्दी कविता में विशिष्ट पहचान रखते हैं। मोहभंग के वातावरण और सामाजिक यथास्थिति का आपकी कविता पर प्रभाव पड़ा। अकविता की ओर उन्मुख हुए। परंतु शीघ्र ही आपको उसकी प्रतिगामिता का बोध हुआ। परिणामस्वरूप प्रगतिशील धारा की ओर उन्मुख हुए। यथार्थ की जमीन ने भविष्य के सुन्दर-सुखद स्वप्नों को आकार दिया। आपकी कविता साधारणजन की आशाओं, स्वप्नों, अनुभूतियों, संवेदनाओं को रूपाकार देती है। यह उपेक्षितों-श्रमिकों के प्रति संवेदना रखते हुए भी मध्यवर्गीय कमजोरियों को उजागर करती है और सत्ता के विरुद्ध मोर्चेबन्द कार्रवाही की प्रस्तावक है। यह उसके दमन-शोषण-हिंसा का प्रतिकार करते हुए भी भविष्य के सुनहरे स्वप्न बाँटती है। इसमें सत्ता से मोर्चेबन्द कार्रवाही करते युवाओं हेतु रणनीति और रणकौशल की सामग्री मौजूद है। कहीं-कहीं यह बहुत विचारोत्तेजक है और सामाजिक-राजनीतिक यथार्थ को रोचक ढंग से अभिव्यक्त करती है। इसमें जहाँ संवाद-शैली मौजूद है वहीँ इसकी सांकेतिकता बहुआयामी है। यह कविता व्यंग्यात्मक मुद्रा लेकर मीडिया की भूमिका को भी प्रश्नांकित करती है।


Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith

This chapter examines the role of taxation in the culture of contentment. In the age of contentment, macroeconomic policy has come to center not on tax policy but on monetary policy. Higher interest rates, it is hoped, will curb inflation without posing a threat to people of good fortune. Those with money to lend, the economically well-endowed rentier class, will thus be rewarded. The chapter first considers the role of monetary policy in the entirely plausible and powerfully adverse attitude toward taxation in the community of contentment before discussing the relationship between taxation and public services, and between taxation and public expenditures. It shows that public services and taxation have disparate effects on the Contented Electoral Majority on the one hand, and on the less affluent underclass on the other.


Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (16) ◽  
pp. 3493-3509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu-hen Chiang

Although there have been a large number of studies carried out on fluctuations in housing prices, little is known about what causes changes in residential rents, which are inextricably intertwined with urban living standards. This is especially noteworthy in Chinese cities, which are now being challenged by the housing market frenzies. Shift-share analysis is proposed to evaluate all possible triggers of residential rent inflation in three cities during the 2001–2013 period, which covers two distinct monetary policy regimes in China. It is found that the recent rise in residential rent comes as a result of aggregate inflation associated with an expansionary monetary policy since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and an all-encompassing and stable policy stance should therefore be adopted.


2020 ◽  
pp. 52-94
Author(s):  
Jeffrey D. Needell

This chapter analyzes the movement’s origins and takes the narrative up to the 1881 electoral defeat. It reviews the 1871 law’s failure and the slaveholders’ assessments, with the Conservative recovery and fall, and explains the Liberals’ ascent and their perennial divisions over policy (with the supremacy of the moderate wing). It then explains the Liberal reformists’ position, the significance of their urban base and its perspective, the importance of the Vintém Revolt of 1880, and the reformists’ decision to emphasize gradualist abolition. It analyzes the movement’s parliamentary origins, the initial leadership in and out of parliament, the activists mobilizing the Afro-Brazilian masses, and Abolitionist parliamentary marginalization. It discusses public mobilization, with an emphasis on press support, initial public organization, and the critical role of middle-class and mass Afro-Brazilian identification and solidarity with the slaves. In concludes with the movement’s electoral defeat in 1881 and Nabuco’s self-exile.


1998 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Peetz

In a policy environment dominated by enterprise bargaining, adjustment of the wages safety net is influenced by a number of factots including the effects of raising award rates on productivity, equity, the incidence of bargaining, wage outcomes from enter prise bargaining and employment. Our understanding of many of these issues has been affected by changes during the 1990s in the relationship between the award safety net and actual wages, by new research and by growing experience of the interaction between award wages and monetary policy. The efficacy of flat rate safety net adjustments in promoting equity is naw also open to challenge. By late in the 1990s the Australian Industrial Relations Commission was in a better position to give effect to its social obligations than it had been at any earlier time in the decade, and to ensure that award rates kept pace in the longer run with changes in community living standards.


2011 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Arestis

Recent developments in macroeconomics and macroeconomic policy, what has come to be known as ?New Consensus in Macroeconomics?, downgrades the role of fiscal policy and upgrades that of monetary policy. This contribution aims to consider this particular contention by focusing on fiscal policy. We consider fiscal policy within the current ?new consensus? theoretical framework, which views fiscal policy as ineffective, and argue that it deserves a great deal more attention paid to it than it has been recently. We review and appraise recent and not so recent theoretical and empirical developments on the fiscal policy front. The possibility of fiscal and monetary policy coordination is proposed and discussed to conclude that it deserves a great deal more attention and careful consideration than it has been given to in the past. Our overall conclusion is that discretionary application of fiscal and monetary policy in a coordinated and focused manner as a tool of macroeconomic policy deserves serious attention paid to it than hitherto.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Gregory Mankiw ◽  
Ricardo Reis

Milton Friedman's presidential address, “The Role of Monetary Policy,” which was delivered 50 years ago in December 1967 and published in the March 1968 issue of the American Economic Review, is unusual in the outsized role it has played. What explains the huge influence of this work, merely 17 pages in length? One factor is that Friedman addresses an important topic. Another is that it is written in simple, clear prose, making it an ideal addition to the reading lists of many courses. But what distinguishes Friedman's address is that it invites readers to reorient their thinking in a fundamental way. It was an invitation that, after hearing the arguments, many readers chose to accept. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to view Friedman's 1967 AEA presidential address as marking a turning point in the history of macroeconomic research. Our goal here is to assess this contribution, with the benefit of a half-century of hindsight. We discuss where macroeconomics was before the address, what insights Friedman offered, where researchers and central bankers stand today on these issues, and (most speculatively) where we may be heading in the future.


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