It’s now widely agreed that the global trading order has been shattered, led by aggressive actions under U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy. With national security as the rallying cry, tariffs have been weaponized, starting with U.S. surcharges on steel and aluminum, and extending into other areas.
Governments, including Canada, responded with countermeasures of their own on U.S. goods, as did many other countries. The spectre of U.S. surcharges on autos and auto parts continues to overhang global markets, along with the threat of additional U.S. tariffs on Chinese products beyond those currently hit and the likelihood of Chinese responding in kind.
Compounding these unilateral developments, the World…
In the coming months, the Bank of Canada‘s mandate to target inflation is coming up for review. Some have suggested that the mandate should be expanded to include responsibility for financial stability, defined as heading off the imbalances that could trigger a severe financial crisis, such as what the world experienced just more than a decade ago. In a recent C.D. Howe Institute report, we argue, marshalling historical and empirical evidence, that granting the Bank an explicit mandate to target financial stability is not a good idea, and that doing so would create a conflict with its tried and true mandate for price stability.
Calls for central banks to take on responsibility for maintaining financial stability are…
Two years ago, in another op-ed, I made an unpopular prediction. I guessed that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s plan to scrap network neutrality rules in the United States would not break the internet. In fact, contrary to the dire forecasts of pro-regulation groups, I thought the measure wouldn’t amount to much of anything: that “net neutrality” legislation was pretty pointless — and so removing it would be uneventful, and certainly not bad for U.S. broadband.
My view was received with a fair amount of hostility. One reader memorably proposed on Twitter that I have intimate relations with my own eyeball. “You are clearly flexible enough and already blind,” he wrote.
I promised to check back in, in two…
