William B.P. Robson on BNN – Canada’s Business Investment Is Lagging Other Countries

Bill Robson, CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss how business investment in Canada is falling behind other OECD countries, and how this could impact wages and productivity growth for our country going forward.

C.D. Howe Institute Business Cycle Council Declares an End to the COVID-19 Recession

August 24, 2021 – The C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council, Canada’s main arbiter of business cycle dates, has declared an end to the COVID-19 recession.

The Council decided on August 9 to declare an end to the recession that began in March 2020. It judged that the recovery from the recession is now prolonged and sustained enough to declare that the trough of the recession occurred in April 2020, making this the shortest and deepest recession since the Great Depression that began in 1929.

In March and April 2020, there were unprecedented falls in economic activity. April GDP was 17.7 percent below its level in February 2020. The Council declared on May 1, 2020, that Canada entered a recession in the first quarter…

Le Bonhomme Sept Heures Effraie Les Marchés – La Presse Opinion

On le croyait mort, mais certains l’ont vu rôder. Plusieurs prédisent son retour prochain. D’autres en font plutôt des gorges chaudes. L’inflation est redevenue le bonhomme Sept Heures des marchés financiers.

Ce n’est pas tant l’augmentation du coût de la vie qui préoccupe les financiers, par ailleurs bien payés, mais l’effet négatif qu’elle pourrait avoir sur les taux d’intérêt et par-delà, sur leurs investissements. L’inflation soulève aussi un questionnement sur le financement de la dette publique.

Ces derniers temps, l’afflux des bonnes nouvelles énerve les marchés. Aux États-Unis, ils notent l’accélération de la vaccination, le gigantesque stimulus budgétaire et un taux d’épargne très élevé. Cet été, les…

How much has the COVID-19 pandemic damaged the economy? – Globe and Mail Op-Ed

Along with much of the world, Canada’s economy has suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic and other events in 2020, notably the shock to global oil markets. How badly? An examination of the immediate data and longer trends indicates significant damage, with a lengthy recovery period ahead.

Let’s start with labour markets, where there are signs of recovery but also growing evidence of damage. The unemployment rate exploded to nearly 14 per cent from 6 per cent during the shutdown from March to May. The rate has dropped steadily since as many displaced workers have been re-engaged, but the second pandemic wave and renewed shutdowns in many provinces have meant more job losses. Employment fell by 63,000 in December, and…

End of Recession Too Early to Call: C.D. Howe Institute Business Cycle Council

December 17, 2020 – Despite economic recovery since April, it is too early to call the end of the recession, according to a new C.D. Howe Institute Business Cycle Council report.

The Council, comprised of Canada’s preeminent economists in the field and co-chaired by Steve Ambler and Jeremy Kronick, is an arbiter of business cycle dates in Canada. The Council typically meets annually, but also when economic conditions indicate the possibility of entry to, or exit from, a recession.

The Council met on December 7 to review the case for calling April 2020 as the end of the recession based on signs of economic recovery since then.

Entering and exiting a recession implies a change in the direction of economic…

The Downturn Was Bad Enough. Don’t Quadruple It! – Financial Post Op-ed

We knew the number would be big. Just how big was the question.

Statistics Canada released its initial estimate of second-quarter GDP on Friday. Output dropped by 11.5 per cent compared with first-quarter GDP and by a little over 13 per cent compared with the second quarter of 2019. This is the largest recorded quarterly decline since Statistics Canada began reporting quarterly GDP numbers in 1961.

The estimate was scary enough but the way it was reported may have caused either unnecessary panic or unnecessary pessimism. Media reports emphasized the “annualized” change in GDP, which was a drop of 38.7 per cent, which is worse than scary. Does this mean Canadian GDP will actually wind up falling almost 40 per cent, as it…

Henri-paul Rousseau – A New Agenda For Cios And CEOs Facing Systemic Risk (part Two)

Henri-paul Rousseau – A New Agenda For Cios And CEOs Facing Systemic Risk (part One)

Ambler, Kronick, Omran – When Can We Say The Recession Is Over?

If This Recovery Sustains, This Recession Could Be Shortest On Record — Or One Of The Longest – Financial Post Op-ed

The art of calling the start and finish of economic recessions might seem a minor one but it is critical to understanding how policy decisions can affect the economy.

Making such calls is normally a backwards-looking exercise, with business cycle analysts waiting for the accumulation of enough data before they feel comfortable issuing even a nuanced interpretation of whether the economy has reached key points in a cycle. This spring, however, the sheer depth and size of the economic losses stemming from the COVID-19 lockdowns left no room for doubt. The C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council was able to declare by May 1 that Canada had entered a recession in the first quarter of 2020 and that the peak of the…

Just a month or two more of this recession and it truly will be the Big One – Financial Post Op-Ed

Economic downturns are never pleasant but this one stands out for all the wrong reasons.

The C.D. Howe Business Cycle Council announced on May 1 that the Canadian economy entered a recession in the first quarter of 2020. Monthly GDP peaked in February, then fell by 7.5 per cent in March and, according to Statistics Canada’s flash estimate released June 30, by a further 11.6 per cent in April. These declines wiped out all the growth in Canadian real GDP since August 2010 and represent the steepest, fastest slide in the 59 years for which we have data.

Though there are some positive signs in May’s economic data — a 1.8 percentage point increase in employment, increases in hours worked, exports and building permits…

La bourse a-t-elle la berlue ? – La Presse Opinion

Qu’est-ce que peut bien voir la Bourse pour regagner si rapidement le terrain perdu, alors que l’économie réelle se contracte comme jamais dans une profonde récession ?

Comme se plaisait à répéter mon ancien collègue de La Presse Alain Dubuc, « la Bourse, ce n’est pas l’économie ! ». Elle est plutôt le reflet d’opinions variées quant à l’évolution future des bénéfices des seules entreprises cotées en Bourse. Ici, le mot clé est futur.

La Bourse est un marché qui met un prix sur le futur, diablement difficile à prévoir, surtout au beau milieu d’une crise sans précédent. Ce prix est rajusté au fur et mesure que le marché digère de nouvelles informations, parfois contradictoires, d’où la…