Poli 463/2 fall 2010 course outline under construction
Poli 463/2
Government and Business course outline
Keynes versus monetarists before and after the crash of 2008
Prof.Harold Chorney
Fall/winter 2010
"In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University's
control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject
to change".
Course overview:
This course explores the tools that are necessary to deal with the contemporary global economy and the public policy that is appropriate after the events in the financial markets these past three years.The crash of September 2008 in the financial markets,the financial bubble that preceded it, the global dimension to the recession which followed it and the presence of widespread significant fraud and excessive reckless risk taking obliges us to reinvigorate standards of regulation in the public interest and to understand the full dimension of financial instability.
Governments all over the world have reacted by engaging in re-regulation, Keynesian deficit finance and a dramatic overhaul of policy to roll back the laissez-faire ideology that had come to dominate public policy over the past two decades. In recent months there has been some backtracking as the defenders of laissez-faire and the Republican critics of President Barack Obama have reasserted the ''wisdom" of laissez faire against what they claim are the failures of liberal socialism and Keynesian intervention and social engineering. Jean Claude Trichet of the European central bank has also been outspoken in his defense of sound finance and budget balance. Hence the debate between the two schools continues.The new British coalition Liberal conservative Government under the leadership of David cameron and Nicholas Clegg has unfortunately also embraced sound finance and budget slashing despite the severity of the recession in the U.K. and the evidence that Labour's return to Keynesian stimulation was working.
In the past this course examined intensively the clash between the Keynesians and the monetarists and the impact of this paradigmatic debate upon public policy. It also examined the neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideology and the break these ideologies have made with post-war liberalism, progressive toryism and social democracy. It argued the case for a return to Keynesian public policy.
This has happened in the leading capitalist economies like the US and Japan, post crash. In many respects the new American Presidential administration of Barack Obama has led the way, although critics like Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman argue that the American stimulus was too small and improperly focused. It has also been undertaken in Europe with Great Britain and to a lesser extent France leading the way, with Germany a very reluctant follower. Despite considerable resistance it has, in a much less dramatic fashion, been undertaken in Canada by the Harper conservative government.
We shall still do some exploration of the history of the previous monetarist classical macroeconomics paradigm but I intend to spend more time this year on deepening our understanding of how the Keynesian technique of demand stimulation is intended to work, the implications for public policy, and how I believe it should work given all of the economic and ideological changes that have occurred over the past thirty years.
We also explore the environmental movement and assesses how environmentalism and green public policy can be integrated with Keynesian approaches to globalization.
We explore the transition from the Keynesian welfare state to the neo-con/neo-liberal doctrine of balanced budgets, free trade and unregulated globalization and to its consequences and now to the return of a refurbished Keynesian approach to public policy. The role of the media and popular culture in transmitting these changes is also explored.The impact of the successful Obama campaign for the Presidency will also be explored in terms of its impact upon public policy.
Texts and basic readings:
The first five works are basic texts and are available either from the student co-operative bookshop at 2150 Bishop, the library on reserve, on the net or in the case of The Deficit papers from me.
John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
Mario Seccareccia and Hassan Bougrine, eds. Introducing Macroeconomic Analysis:Issues , Questions and Competing Views:Toronto: Edmund Montgomery publications, 2010.
Joseph Stiglitz, Free Fall:America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World economy , 2010
The Rotman School of Management, the finance Crisis and rescue:What went wrong? Why? What lessons can be Learned ? Toronto:U of Toronto Press, 2008.
Harold Chorney, The Deficit Papers available from me in electronic format.
Other core readings:
Hyman Minsky, Stabilizing an Unstable economy
Can ''It" Happen again?:Essays on instability and finance
John Maynard Keynes
Kevin Phillips, Bad Money:Reckless finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism
Peter Clarke, Keynes:The Rise ,Fall, and Return of the 20th Century's Most Influential Economist.
David Mendell, Obama from Promise to Power
Harold Chorney, "On Manias, panics and bail-outs:further thoughts on the financial crisis" see my blog Haroldchorneypoliticaleconomist.piczo.com.
Harold Chorney, Revisiting deficit hysteria, labour/Le travail, #54, 2004 available on the net
Harold Chorney, The Global Financial Crisis, the Re-emergence of Keynes and the Role of Quantitative Easing
paper Presented to the World Congress of Social Economics, Concordia university, Montréal, June 2010 (excerpt on blog.)
Harold Chorney Restoring full employment:the natural rate of inflation versus the natural rate of unemployment paper presented to the Conference on Social Policy as if People Matter, Adelphi university, Garden City New York, November 12, 2004 (available on net)
Alvin Hansen, A Guide to Keynes (on reserve)
Sidney Blumenthal, The rise of the Counter-establishment:From Conservative Ideology to Political Power
Desmond King, The New Right:Politics, Markets and Citizenship
Brian Snowdon and Howard Vane, eds. A macroeconomics reader, 1997.
Snowdon and Vane, Modern Macroeconomics:its origins, development and current state.Edward elgar, 2006
The following are some selected basic supplementary readings.You are not expected to read them all but rather portions of some of them. Some of them will be placed on reserve. Others are available through the library .They are intended to help with your research papers and illustrate the breadth and richness of the literature in the area.
John McMurtry, Unequal freedoms:the global market as an ethical system.
Adam Harmes, The Return of the state: protestors, power brokers and the new global compromise, douglas and mcIntyre, 2004.
Henry M.Paulson,Jr. On The Brink, Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System, N.Y. :Business plus, 2010;
Scott Patterson, The Quants:How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It, N.Y.: Crown Business, 2010;
William Cohan; House of Cards:A Tale of Wretched Excess on Wall Street,N.Y.:Random House Doubleday, 2009;
Benoit Mandelbrot & Richard Hudson, The Misbehaviour of Markets:A Fractal View of Financial turbulence, N.Y.:Basic Books, 2004;
Kevin Phillips, Bad Money:Reckless Finance, failed politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, N.Y.:Viking, 2008;
Haroldchorneypoliticaleconomist.piczo.com;
Nouriel Roubini & Stephen Mihm, Crisis Economics:A crash course in the future of finance, N.Y.&London: the Penguin Press, 2010;
Paul Jorion, La Crise:Des subprimes au seisime financier planétaire,Paris, France: Fayard, 2008;
Richard Posner, A failure of Capitalism:The crisis of 08 and the descent into depression, Cambridge, Mass. and London U.K., 2009;
Bill Bamber & Andrew Spencer,Bear Trap: The Fall of Bear Stearns and the Panic of 2008, New York :Brick Tower Press, 2008;
Richard Bookstaber,A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge funds and the Perils of Financial Innovation,Hoboken N.J., John Wiley & sons, 2007 )
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash,1929
Alvin Hansen, Monetary theory and Fiscal Policy.
Fausto Vicarelli, Keynes:The Instability of Capitalism
George Soros, The New Paradigm for financial markets..
Charles Kindleberger, Manias, Panics and Crashes.
The World in Depression:1929-1939.
David Colander and Dewey Daane, The Art of Monetary Policy.
J.A. Trevithick , Involuntary Unemployment:Macroeconomics from a Keynesian Perspective.
Robert Kuttner, Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency.
Tim Lewis, In the Long Run We`re all Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal restraint.(on reserve)
Robert Ascah, Politics and Public debt:the Dominion, the Banks and Alberta's Social Credit.
Doug Henwood, Wall Street.
Richard Parker, John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics , His Economics.
Peter Clarke, The Keynesian Revolution in the Making.
Will Hutton, The Revolution that Never Was: an Assessment of Keynesian Economics.
Lawrence Klein, The Keynesian Revolution.
J.C.Gilbert, Keynes'Impact on Monetary Economics.
Axel Leijonhufvud, On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of Keynes.
Gary Teeple, Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform(reserve)
Jonathon Michie and John Grieve Smith eds., Managing the Global Economy.
David Held & Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, Taming globalization: frontiers of Governance.
Bao Gao, Japan's Economic Dilemma:the institutional origins of prosperity and stagnation.
Sidney Blumenthal, The Rise of the Counter Establishment, From Conservative Ideology to Political Power.
Armand Van Dormael, Bretton Woods: Birth of a Monetary System.
Robert Lucas, Studies in Business Cycle Theory.
Milton Friedman," The role of monetary policy" The American Economic Review, 1968, vol.58, March, pp.1-17 reproduced in Brian Snowdon and Howard Vane, A Macroeconomics Reader.
Alan Blinder, The fall and rise of Keynesian economics, Economic Record, 1988, December reproduced in Snowdon and Vane., A Macroeconomics Reader
James Tobin, "Price Flexibility and output stability:an old Keynesian view.Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1993 vol7, Winter. reproduced in Snowdon and Vane.a Macroeconomics reader
David Laidler, Monetarism:an Interpretation and an assessment.Economic Journal,1981, vol.91 March reproduced in Snowdon and Vane.
F.A.Hayek, The Fatal Conceit:The Errors of Socialism.
Allan Meltzer, A History of the Federal Reserve, Vol. 1:1913-1951.
James Rock ed. ,Debt and the Twin Deficits Debate.
Robert Heilbroner and Peter Bernstein, The debt and the Deficit:fal;se Alarms/Real Possibilities.
Harold Chorney& Phil Hansen, Toward a Humanist Political Economy
Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties;
Making Globalization Work
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific revolutions;
Adam Harmes, The Return of the State:Protesters, power brokers and the new global compromise;
Georges Campeau, From UI to EI:Waging War on the Welfare State;
Stephen Clarkson, Uncle Sam and Us.
Michael Woodin & Caroline Lucas, Green alternatives to Globalisation.
Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.
Nicholas Stern, Review Report on the economics of climate change to the British government (available on the internet)
Gwyne Dyer, Climate Wars.
Rubin Simkin, Comments on Consumption, Income distribution and Growth (on reserve)
E.F.Schumacher, Small is Beautiful.(on reserve)
E.J.Mishan, the Costs of Economic Growth (on reserve)
J.Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State (on reserve)
The Affluent Society (on reserve)
A Short history of financial euphoria.
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (on reserve)
Joseph Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis.
Paul Davidson, Post Keynesian Macroeconomic Theory.
H.Binhammer, Money and Banking and the Canadian Financal System
Alan Booth, British Economic Policy 1931-1949.Was There a Keynesian Revolution?
Anna Carabelli, On Keynes' Method.
Leo Pliatzky, The Treasury under Mrs. Thatcher.
L.Randall Wray, Understanding Modern Money.the Key to Full Employment and Price Stability
William Greer, Ethics and Uncertainty, The Economics of John M. Keynes and Frank H. Knight.
Students are also expected to read extensively the financial and quality press each week.These include The Financial Times, The New York Times,the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian,the Globe and Mail, and focus on stories on the economy, the financial crisis and the recovery.
Evaluation: Essay due mid term, the first week of November 50 %
Final exam 50 %.
Topics
1.Introduction and overview.The interface between economics and politics.The art and science of political economy. The recent financial crisis, sub -prime mortgages, bank bailouts and the crash of 2008. The need for stimulus and the revival of Keynes. The eclipse of monetarism.? The challenge of climate change and the protection of the environment. The impact of the crash and challenges before Barack Obama. The rise and fall of the new right.The Canadian response. the origins of macroeconomics.
readings: Chorney, On manias , panics and crashes; Chorney; the introduction to the Deficit papers,Chorney the global financial Crisis, re-emergence of Keynes and origins of Quantitative easing.the essay on Keynes in the Deficit papers;chapter one in Kuttner.Obama's challenge.chapter one in Phillips. Kindleberger; Galbraith, on the crash and Minsky, introduction to Can it Happen again and editors' introduction to stabilizing an unstable economy.
chapter one Seccareccia and Bougrinepp.1-33.Snowdon and Vane, introduction.modern macroeconomics.
2.Globalization and the ethical dilemma. Myths and truths about globalization.The environmental challenge.Economic growth and entropy.
Readings: Nicholas Stern, Al Gore;K.Phillips; Stiglitz, introduction and chapter one. John McMurtry pp.1-52.
3. The myth of no alternative.The role of regulation and public enterprise. Laissez-faire versus planning.Hayek versus Keynes. The eclipse of Marx.The rejection of Keynes. Daniel Bell and the End of Ideology. The rise of post-modernism and the new classical macroeconomics.
Readings :Chorney global financial crisis...; Chorney deficit papers :The future of crown corporations:government ownership, Regulation or market control,A Keynesian approach, 1998; Blumenthal; King, Hayek, Mcmurtry, Harmes, Lucas, Friedman,Laidler.
4.The role of the media; political pressure groups;democracy propaganda and the policy process. The rise of the neo-cons.
Media and popular culture in the post modern age.The post war consensus and how it unravelled. Stagflation
and misinterpreting the General theory.
Readings :Chorney the deficit papers: The economic and political consequences of Canadian monetarism; Keynes and the problem of inflation.Keynes, the General Theory The two postulates of classical economics; the possibility that labour markets do not clear; the notion of involuntary unemployment.
Blumenthal, King, Block, Chorney, the natural rate of inflation..., Keynes GT ch.1-3; Peter Clarke Keynes, introduction.
5. The consumption function. The multiplier. Savings and investment.The theory of interest rate determination.Readings: Keynes GT; Hansen a guide to Keynes.
6. The controversy over debt and public finance.readings:Cavenaugh, Rock; Eisner; Heilbroner and Chorney: Rediscovering deficit hysteria, The deficit: hysteria and the current crisis and Chorney commentary on the FT's austerity debate plus U tube video on deficits and debt.
7. The strategy of stimulus. investment in infrastructure. Investment versus tax cuts. The impact of capital flows.
Readings :Chorney blog entries on stimulus and the strategy behind it plus others tba.
8. The roots of neo-conservatism.The cold war. The Vietnam war and the sixties. The OPEC crisis of the 1970s. Stagflation. Thatcher Reagan and Mulroney in the 1980s. The Clinton, Blair and Chretien third way.The Bush and Blair war in Iraq. The challenge of Afghanistan.The resurgence of liberalism in America. Obama's challenge.
Readings: blog; Stiglitz Free Fall; Stiglitz The roaring nineties;globalization and its discontents.Chorney and P.Hansen Toward a Humanist Political economy, The falling rate of legitimation ; introduction and Neo-conservatism, social democracy and provinve building;King and Blumenthal.
9. The roots of monetarism.Hayek versus Keynes in the thirties. Friedman versus neo-classical Keynesianism in the sixties and seventies. The post-Keynesians and John Kenneth Galbraith. Towards a new Keynesian paridigm.The return of regulation and the state. The bail-out of the banks , Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and AIG insurance ; cleaning up the bubble,Readings :Stiglitz,Paulson,Phillips, Tobin; Blinder; Davidson;Harmon; Chorney
10. Post and neo-Keynesian policy in the age of OPEC. readings:Davidson,Harmon , others TBA.
11. Development issues. The IMF and the World Bank. The turn to the left in Latin America. The return of full employment ? Capitalism in Asia.
Readings: Stiglitz, Chorney.
12. Prospects for democracy, balanced ecologically sound growth and the compassionate society in the new world order.
Weekly notes: I will use this space to refer students to readings, updates sources etc.
Please note that the reading Harold Chorney,"On manias, panics and bailouts:further thoughts on the financial crisis" is available by referring to my blog. Jan.14, 2009 On manias, panic and bailouts: further thoughts. Keynes GT is sold at the co-op bookshop on Bishop. There are also numerous copies in the libraries around town including Concordia and it is also accessible on line. Begin reading the first 50 pages and we will discuss it in class.
Please go to the PBS.org site and watch their excellent documentary Inside the financial Meltdown which was broadcast on Frontline.It provides an insightful and personal look at the financial crisis as it unfolded in New York and Washington in 2008.
Essay assignment due in class in the first week of November.
Please research and write a 12 to 15 page essay on one of the following topics or if you prefer propose an alternative topic to me. Be sure to use a manual of style, include a full bibliography and proper notes identifying your sources. Sources should include books, periodical literature, quality financial papers like the Wall Street Journal, the Globe and Mail, The Financial Times or the New York Times well as internet sources.
Possible topics include:
1. Discuss the root causes of the financial crisis. Explore the factors that influenced its unfolding as it has. What are the principal flaws in the economic theory that business leaders and policy makers relied upon that led to this crisis? How must economic theory be reconstructed to avoid these policy failures in the future?
2. Compare and contrast the monetarist approach to public policy and management of the business cycle with the Keynesian schools' approach.Why and how did monetarism displace the Keynes style approach in the 1970s? Does the current crisis suggest another paradigm shift?
3. Discuss the controversy over government use of deficits to stimulate the economy in an economic downturn.Explore the role of deficits in the current policy environment. How does the Canadian Harper stimulus compare with that of the Obama administration? What is the appropriate monetary policy in conjunction with stimulative deficits ? what impact will the new Osborne budget in the U.K. likely have ?
4. Explore the roots and current operations of the IMF and the World Bank.
What reforms appear necessary at these institutions. Give concrete country based examples.
5. Explore panics, manias and crashes in financial history. How does this panic compare with previous ones ?
6. Explore the theory of the multiplier and Keynes' theory of investment. How ought we to modify Keynes' theory of investment to adjust to the current circumstances of globalization ?
7. Explore the roots of neo-conservatism. Does it have a future ?
8. Explore the environmental aspects of economic stimulus. Is there an inherent contradiction between stimulus leading to full employment and sound environmental policy ?
9. What would constitute a viable and contemporary theory of economic liberalism that would respect the social and economic needs of people but at the same time be open to global values ?
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Poli 363/2 Course outline
Poli 363 fall 2010
Fall, 2010 . Course outline(under construction)
Canadian Public Policy :Eight Policy Problems
Professor Harold Chorney
"In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University's
control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject
to change".
e mail blmsbry36@gmail.com, Office hours tba.
Course synopsis: This course introduces students to the analysis of selected contemporary public policy problems. We select eight policy issues and examine them intensively over the next 13 weeks. The course is research oriented and requires students to spend time seeking material on the internet and in the library as well as reading extensively in each of the areas from the list of works provided. There is no formal text that covers all of these areas. However, several works including a collection of readings on the problems of public finance and 2 texts on introducing micro and macroeconomic analysis are assigned as texts. Despite the large class size we will endeavour to have informed discussion and debate in each class. This, however, obliges students to do their work outside of class in order to insure that discussion and debate is well informed and based on research rather than uninformed opinion.
The world of public policy has shifted dramatically during the past few years. The collapse in the stock and financial markets in 2007 and 2008 and early 2009; the pricking of the real estate bubble; the crisis in asset backed commercial paper;the implosion in derivatives; the spate of corporate scandals, fraud and corruption; the sub -prime mortgage collapse in the U.S. and its impact upon the banking system in the U.S.and Great Britain; the general global financial paralysis that followed this collapse; the terrible events of September 11th ,2001; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tragedy of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast and the recent oil spill in the Gulf have dramatically shifted public opinion in both Canada and the United States and to some extent globally as well.
What was once seen as impossible or passé in terms of government intervention in the economy has now once again been placed at the top of the agenda. Reregulation, intervention,investment in infrastructure and long term planning and environmentalism as opposed to laissez-faire and growth at all costs and even budget deficits as deliberate policy are back on the agenda. After thirty plus years in the shadows, Keynesian policy is once again somewhat fashionable and even celebrated Corporate executives from finance, manufacturing and transportation led the call for intervention, stimulus, bailout and reregulation.The once much vaunted theory of perfectly rational markets and laissez-faire is now once again passé. In recent months there has been an attempt led by right wing Republicans in the U.S. and Conservative politicians in the U.K to reassert sound finance principles and argue that Keynesian stimulus has failed. But the evidence is not convincing. The U.S. non partisan bureau of the budget has recently reported that the American stimulus was effective in both lowering the unemployment rate and promoting geowth and economic recovery.The problem has been that the stimulus was on the small side. More is needed if results are to improve. But politically this will be difficult to accomplish.
Keynesian New Deal style policy proposals for reinvestment in infrastructure and fiscal stimulus were advocated by leading American figures like Larry Summers, the former US secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard university and now President Obama's principal economic advisor, Robert Reich, the former US Labour secretary, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and even Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger of California. President Barack Obama has implemented a 787 U.S. billion dollar Keynesian stimulus which is designed to reverse much of the damage of the deep recession that followed the financial collapse.A second phase is now necessary but the Congress seems poised to reject any such plan.
The Republicans seem rejeuvenated by the radical right wing tea party movement. We shall see what this translates into in the mid term elections. In Canada the clash of political opponents seems less dramatic since the Harper government rather pragmatically endorsed a small but significant stimulus package and the Liberals under the pressure of events abandoned, perhaps only temporarily, their previous hostility to deficit finance.
The re-election of the Bush Republicans to a second term had significant implications for Canada.The crisis in management of the natural disaster following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina raised some interesting questions about the balance of political forces in the US. The quagmire in Iraq greatly increased dissatisfaction with the Bush Republicans .The race for the Presidency between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain turned into not just a major debate about Iraq but also the future direction of the American economy and the role of fiscal and monetary policy. The Keynesian inclined Barack Obama and the Democrats won the election decisively and policy has shifted accordingly.This will eventually have a major impact upon policy in Canada.
The American Congress at the behest of President Bush had enacted a significant stimulus package which had resulted in a modest Keynes style deficit of about 3 % of the GDP.The Obama stimulus was much larger and amounted to over 6 % of the GDP. In this respect because of different circumstances the extreme fiscal conservative orthodoxy of Canada's political parties is now overshadowed by the rediscovery of Keynesian technique in the USA. The refusal to think about the wisdom of stimulus facilitated by deficit spending in Canada now looks and is outdated and anachronistic.Under the pressure of the changed circumstances the Canadian Harper government finally moved to introduce and have passed a very modest 40 billion dollar stimulus to deal with the recession in Canada.It now no longer calls for an immediate balanced budget or the old now untimely call for balanced budgets ''come hell or high water" that Paul Martin and the Liberals articulated in the early 1990s.This is a major shift in policy.
However, the recent Toronto G20 meeting reasserted the claim of conservative central bankers like Jean Claude Trichet of the European Central bank and the current head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn that the stimulus moment had now passed and fiscal tightening was now preferred.
The energy crisis which saw oil prices rise to close to $150 a barrel from below $30 just two years before has had an enormous impact upon public opinion in both countries.They have now fallen to the 70 dollar range.This spike in prices contributed to the recession. Since Canada is a net oil exporter and very rich in energy supplies, particularly in Alberta and its oil sands, while the US is a major net importer of oil the economic impact has been quite different in both countries. The issue of the cartel that controls oil prices and its impact upon employment, growth and inflation will continue to be a hot issue in both Canada and the U.S.
Canada must now reassess its historic relationship to the
United States in the light of the on going security needs of both the United States and Canada and our increasing economic dependence upon American export markets in an era where globalization and outsourcing pose important challenges to our prosperity.The frustration of Canadian policy makers and public opinion over soft-wood lumber exports and cross border traffic may lead to a rethink about the terms of free trade with the US. The Democratic party's apparent preference for a more protectionist trade stance will be an important factor in the years to come. We have moved from a majority government to a stable minority government where these issues are likely to receive heightened attention.
We explore a number of themes that lead logically out from this new environment in the new global economy of 2010. My goal is to help the student become a skillful policy analyst and an independent thinker about policy issues.
About the professor. I am the author of numerous books, monographs, reviews and articles on public policy, urban studies, monetary and fiscal policy and political economy.I am a nationally well known policy expert trained as an economist and political scientist having studied at the Universities of Manitoba, Toronto and the London School of Economics. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and am a full Professor in the Department of Political Science having taught here since 1982.I have given guest lectures and presented papers at a number of universities in Canada and abroad including York University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Adelphi University and the Architectural Association of London, UK. I am regularly engaged in public policy debates in the media and participate in the political life of Canada. I have been consulted by the Government of Canada, the Governments of Ontario, Manitoba, B.C. and Saskatchewan and members of the Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties .My research work on public finance has attracted attention from politicians, researchers and academics in the United States, Great Britain and France. I communicate my research to leading newspapers in Britain, the United States and Canada as well as to electronic media and more conventional scholarly sources. I have also worked as a housing economist, urban planning consultant and an economic consultant. I have also run as a candidate for elected office at the city level.
Texts and Basic Background Readings:(Note texts will be available at the Concordia Co-operative Book Store on Bishop St just below Sherbrooke)
Harold Chorney, The Deficit Papers,Montreal: 2010 ed..(available through me)
Joseph Stiglitz, Free Fall:America,Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Hassan Bougrine, Ian Parker and Mario Seccareccia eds. Introducing Microeconomic Analysis
Mario Seccareccia and Hassan Bougrine Introducing Macroeconomic Analysis
Caroline Lucas and Michael Woodlin , Green alternatives to Globalization
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist ? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror
Basic background readings:
Revisiting Deficit hysteria in Labour/Le travail fall 2004.pp.245-258.(available on internet)
The Finance Crisis and Rescue, The Rotman School of Management, 2008 (recommended)
Stephen Clarkson, Uncle Sam and US
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror (text)
Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans :The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (recommended)
Kevin Phillips, Bad Money:Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism Viking 2008 (recommended reading)
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud(recommended reading)
Caroline Lucas&Michael Woodin: Green Alternatives to Globalization A Manifesto (text)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Simon and Schuster, 1997.(recommended rerading)
Daniel Drache, Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America(recommended reading)
John Dean , Conservatives without Conscience (recommended reading)
George Soros, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets :The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means(Public Affairs)(recomended reading)
Thomas Kean& Lee Hamilton et al, The 9/11 Report The National Commisssion on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (recommended reading)
Tim Lewis, In the Long Run We're All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint. (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, 2001.( recommended )
Joseph Stiglitz : The Roaring Nineties: A New Twist on the World's Most Prosperous Decade( recommended reading)
Harold Chorney, The Economic Benefits of Linguistic Duality in Albert Breton, The Economics of Bilingualism, Ottawa:Canadian Heritage, 1998.(recommended reading also may be available on the internet)
Harold Chorney and Philip Hansen, Toward a Humanist Political Economy, Black Rose, Montreal, 1992. .(recomended reading)
Bai Gao, Japan's Economic Dilemma:The institutional origins of prosperity and stagnation, Cambridge university Press, 2001.
Phillipe Legrain, Open World The Truth about Globalization, 2002, Abacus Books (recommended reading)
Noam Chomsky, 9/11, NY: Open media Book, Seven Stories press,: 2001.(recommended reading)
Lewis Lapham, Gag Rule: On the Supression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy (recommended reading)
Doris Sommer, Bilingual Aesthetics (recommended)
George Grant, Lament for a Nation.
Lloyd Axworthy, Navigating a New World:Canada's Global Future (recommended reading)
The Honourable Michael Kirby &the Honourable Margorie Lebreton co chair, The Health of Canadians: The Federal Role, Final Report on the state of the Health Care System in Canada, Vol Six:Recommendations for Reform, (recommended reading)
Jagdish Bhagwati, A Stream of Windows:Unsettling Reflections on Trade, Immigration and Democracy (recommended reading)
Jim Stanford,Paper Boom, CCPA, 1999.
Lars Osburg &Pierre Fortin, Unnecessary Debts, Toronto, Lorimer, 1996.
Andrew Jackson,et al, Falling Behind:The State of Working Canada, 2000
Bob Rae, The Three Questions:Prosperity and the Public Good, Toronto Penguin, 1998.
Daniel Drache & Terry Sullivan,eds. Health Reform: Public Success/Private Failure NY: Routledge, 1999
Michael Rachlis & Carol Kushner, Strong Medicine,Toronto:Harper Collins, 1994.(recommended)
Linda McQuaig, The Cult of Impotence:Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy, Viking 1998.
Linda McQuaig, Shooting the Hippo, Viking, 1995.(recommended reading)
Thomas Palley, Plenty of Nothing, The downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism, Princeton University Press, 1998.
Colleen Fuller, Caring For Profit:How Corporations are Taking Over Canada's Health Care System (recommended reading)
Stephen McBride and John Shields, Dismantling a Nation:The transition to Corporate Rule in Canada.Halifax, Fernwood, 1997.
Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access, Tarcher, Putnam Penguin, New York, 2000.
The Empathetic civilization: the race to global Consciousness in a world of crisis.N.Y.:Tarcher Putnam Penguin, 2009
John Grieve Smith, There is a Better Way: A New Economic Agenda, London:Anthem Pres, 2001.
Paul Omerod, Butterfly Economics, NY: Pantheon Books, 2000.
Daniel Lazare, What's Killing Our Cities and How We Can Stop It, New York:Harcourt, 2001
Edmund P.Fowler & David Siegel, Urban Policy Issues :Canadian Perspectives, Toronto:Oxford University Press.,2002.
Andrew Sancton, Merger Mania: The Assault on Local Government, Montreal: 2000.
Harold Chorney, Review of Anrew Sancton's book in Canadian Journal of Regional Science.
Alan Broadbent Urban Nation:Why we need to give power back to the cities to make Canada strong, Harper Collins,2008.
Harold Chorney , City of Dreams: Social Theory and the Urban Experience, Nelson, 1990
Mark Kingwell, Concrete Reveries:Consciousness and the City, Viking, 2008
Key Web sites:
www.cec.org, web site of the North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation.
www. ville.Montreal.qc.Ca, web site of the city of Montreal
IMF; OECD; Eurostat; U.S.Treasury; U.S. Bureau of Labour statistics; Statistics Canada.
GRADE:
The grade will be based on a final exam 50 % and a mid term test or an essay 50 %.
TOPICS:
1. Introduction and overview. How does public policy analysis work? The role of interdisciplinarity. Research techniques. Policy and values.Policy and the political process. Globalization and trade.
Policy after the market crash, the credit crisis and the post 9/11 world.
Readings: 9/11 report; Drache.The Rotman school; Phillips, Soros, Chorney blog items on credit crisis, manias panics and bailouts, and the Keynesian revival,Ha-Joon Chang, Stiglitz.Clarkson.
2. The Return of Keynesian economics in public policy.Obama, Bush, McCain, Clinton (Hillary and Bill) and the revival of Keynes in the US. Canadian fiscal conservatism . Public finance.The debate about deficits,surpluses, debt and employment. The return of regulation after Enron, Madoff, the crash on Wall street, the banking crisis, the dot com bubble bursting and the credit crisis and sub-prime housing market.
Readings: Galbraith; Chorney on revisiting deficit hysteria; on deficits; Tim Lewis , Chorney blog items on revival of Keynes and the financial crisis.Chorney paper on quantitative easing and the crisis.Chorney on the role of public enterprise and regulation in The deficit papers. Chorney U tube items on Keynesianism, financial crisis and deficits and debt.
3. The Challenge of Protecting our Health care system. The Canadian, British and American models. Federal provincial disputes over health care. The Romanow Commission. Alberta versus the Federal Government. Market versus public approaches. The American health care debate. The question of affordability.
Readings:Fuller, Romanow and Kirby Reports available on the internet;Drache and Sullivan; Rachlis and Kushner.Canadian Health Information data base.Clarkson.The New York Times and the Wall Street journal, Huffington post and Salon magazine.
4. The rise and fall of the mega-city of Montreal. The background, the debate, the election and the demerger referenda.The fall election. The Mayor and Council.Scandal at city hall. Budgetary questions.The problem of homelessness. A federal role in cities ? The challenge for local democracy and economic development.
.Readings: Sancton; Aubin; Broadbent;Chorney , Mark Kingwell.
5. Managing the global economy.Corporate behaviour. The problem of capital flows. The Argentine debt crisis.Latin American contagion. The need for new financial architecture. The Tobin tax, debt repayment standstills and reworking exchange rates. Market disorder versus regulated management. Turbulence in Venezuela. Canada and Latin America.Venezuela& oil.The Brazilian third way.The policy stance of the new Japanese government with respect to globalization.
Readings: Galbraith; Stiglitz;internet on Argentina and debt crisis and Venezuela.Clarkson on Nafta; Bai Gao on Japan
6. Environmental challenges. NAFTA and managing the environment.The tension between economic growth and the environment.The Kyoto accord. Globalization and Green Politics ? Hurricane Katrina and civil preparedness.Dion's Green shift.
Readings: Clarkson; Drache; Bhagwati; internet, Lucas and Woodlin Green manifesto
7. Bilingualism: A Canadian defining characteristic.The" Spanish challenge " in the United States.
Readings: Chorney in Albert Breton; Huntington on the Hispanic Challenge; Sommer on Bilingual Aesthetics.
8.. Canada in a global world; Canadian foreign policy in the era of NAFTA and 9/11. Our security. Our relationship with the United States. The Axworthy legacy. From Axworthy to Manly to Graham to Pettigrew. The missile defense controversy. A new way forward ? The clash of civilizations ? Chomsky versus Huntington.
Readings: Drache;9/11 report;Chomsky ;Huntington; Axworthy.
9. The energy crunch. Alberta and the problem of fiscal federalism. Sharing the wealth of regional resources. Canadian oil and American needs, a strategic partnership. The future of free trade.
Readings:Clarkson; tba.
Weekly assignments: September: Read the Revisiting deficit hysteria (internet) and Manias panics and bailouts essays. The first is on the net the second is in my blog Jan.2009 Begin reading Clarkson and Stiglitz.
Readings Sept 30 The deficit papers chapters; start with ch. on Keynes, the new introduction to collection, and deficit hysteria.
Essay assignment: Due the first week of November Thursday Nov.5.
Write an essay of 12-15 pages on one of the following topics drawn from the course . Be sure to use a manual of style and properly cite sources and providea bibliography. You should use books, periodical literature and internet sources that are properly noted.
Topics :
1. Discuss the debate over deficits, surpluses and debts. evaluate the Obama stimulus as compared to the Harper one .
2. Explain the origins of the recent financial crash. What role did deregulation and laissez-faire play in this crash. What has been the experience of financial panics and crashes in history.
3. Compare Keynes' theory of unemployment and anti-recession policy with that of the monetarists.
4. Explore the problem of inflation in a capitalist economy. Can moderate inflation be compatible with real economic growth and low unemployment.
5. What led to the eclipse of Keynes from 1974 to 2008.
6. Explore the oil industry and the global pricing system for oil.
7. What is the history of Canadian health care. How does the Canadian system compare to the American debate over health care.
8. Explore the origins of neo-conservatism. How was it able to have such a lasting large impact upon western societies.
9. Discuss the debt crisis and dollar currency boards in Latin America and their impact upon Argentina.
10.Compare and contrast the argument of Noam Chomsky with respect to American power as opposed to the work of Samuel Huntington.
11. Examine the history and evolution of the debate over global warming and Canada's policy stance toward this critical issue.
12. What has been the Canadian foreign policy orientation. what should it be.
13.Examine the state of free trade between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.Explore the evolution of the doctrine, its consequences for Canada and its likely future evolution.
Fall, 2010 . Course outline(under construction)
Canadian Public Policy :Eight Policy Problems
Professor Harold Chorney
"In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University's
control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject
to change".
e mail blmsbry36@gmail.com, Office hours tba.
Course synopsis: This course introduces students to the analysis of selected contemporary public policy problems. We select eight policy issues and examine them intensively over the next 13 weeks. The course is research oriented and requires students to spend time seeking material on the internet and in the library as well as reading extensively in each of the areas from the list of works provided. There is no formal text that covers all of these areas. However, several works including a collection of readings on the problems of public finance and 2 texts on introducing micro and macroeconomic analysis are assigned as texts. Despite the large class size we will endeavour to have informed discussion and debate in each class. This, however, obliges students to do their work outside of class in order to insure that discussion and debate is well informed and based on research rather than uninformed opinion.
The world of public policy has shifted dramatically during the past few years. The collapse in the stock and financial markets in 2007 and 2008 and early 2009; the pricking of the real estate bubble; the crisis in asset backed commercial paper;the implosion in derivatives; the spate of corporate scandals, fraud and corruption; the sub -prime mortgage collapse in the U.S. and its impact upon the banking system in the U.S.and Great Britain; the general global financial paralysis that followed this collapse; the terrible events of September 11th ,2001; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tragedy of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast and the recent oil spill in the Gulf have dramatically shifted public opinion in both Canada and the United States and to some extent globally as well.
What was once seen as impossible or passé in terms of government intervention in the economy has now once again been placed at the top of the agenda. Reregulation, intervention,investment in infrastructure and long term planning and environmentalism as opposed to laissez-faire and growth at all costs and even budget deficits as deliberate policy are back on the agenda. After thirty plus years in the shadows, Keynesian policy is once again somewhat fashionable and even celebrated Corporate executives from finance, manufacturing and transportation led the call for intervention, stimulus, bailout and reregulation.The once much vaunted theory of perfectly rational markets and laissez-faire is now once again passé. In recent months there has been an attempt led by right wing Republicans in the U.S. and Conservative politicians in the U.K to reassert sound finance principles and argue that Keynesian stimulus has failed. But the evidence is not convincing. The U.S. non partisan bureau of the budget has recently reported that the American stimulus was effective in both lowering the unemployment rate and promoting geowth and economic recovery.The problem has been that the stimulus was on the small side. More is needed if results are to improve. But politically this will be difficult to accomplish.
Keynesian New Deal style policy proposals for reinvestment in infrastructure and fiscal stimulus were advocated by leading American figures like Larry Summers, the former US secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard university and now President Obama's principal economic advisor, Robert Reich, the former US Labour secretary, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and even Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger of California. President Barack Obama has implemented a 787 U.S. billion dollar Keynesian stimulus which is designed to reverse much of the damage of the deep recession that followed the financial collapse.A second phase is now necessary but the Congress seems poised to reject any such plan.
The Republicans seem rejeuvenated by the radical right wing tea party movement. We shall see what this translates into in the mid term elections. In Canada the clash of political opponents seems less dramatic since the Harper government rather pragmatically endorsed a small but significant stimulus package and the Liberals under the pressure of events abandoned, perhaps only temporarily, their previous hostility to deficit finance.
The re-election of the Bush Republicans to a second term had significant implications for Canada.The crisis in management of the natural disaster following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina raised some interesting questions about the balance of political forces in the US. The quagmire in Iraq greatly increased dissatisfaction with the Bush Republicans .The race for the Presidency between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain turned into not just a major debate about Iraq but also the future direction of the American economy and the role of fiscal and monetary policy. The Keynesian inclined Barack Obama and the Democrats won the election decisively and policy has shifted accordingly.This will eventually have a major impact upon policy in Canada.
The American Congress at the behest of President Bush had enacted a significant stimulus package which had resulted in a modest Keynes style deficit of about 3 % of the GDP.The Obama stimulus was much larger and amounted to over 6 % of the GDP. In this respect because of different circumstances the extreme fiscal conservative orthodoxy of Canada's political parties is now overshadowed by the rediscovery of Keynesian technique in the USA. The refusal to think about the wisdom of stimulus facilitated by deficit spending in Canada now looks and is outdated and anachronistic.Under the pressure of the changed circumstances the Canadian Harper government finally moved to introduce and have passed a very modest 40 billion dollar stimulus to deal with the recession in Canada.It now no longer calls for an immediate balanced budget or the old now untimely call for balanced budgets ''come hell or high water" that Paul Martin and the Liberals articulated in the early 1990s.This is a major shift in policy.
However, the recent Toronto G20 meeting reasserted the claim of conservative central bankers like Jean Claude Trichet of the European Central bank and the current head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn that the stimulus moment had now passed and fiscal tightening was now preferred.
The energy crisis which saw oil prices rise to close to $150 a barrel from below $30 just two years before has had an enormous impact upon public opinion in both countries.They have now fallen to the 70 dollar range.This spike in prices contributed to the recession. Since Canada is a net oil exporter and very rich in energy supplies, particularly in Alberta and its oil sands, while the US is a major net importer of oil the economic impact has been quite different in both countries. The issue of the cartel that controls oil prices and its impact upon employment, growth and inflation will continue to be a hot issue in both Canada and the U.S.
Canada must now reassess its historic relationship to the
United States in the light of the on going security needs of both the United States and Canada and our increasing economic dependence upon American export markets in an era where globalization and outsourcing pose important challenges to our prosperity.The frustration of Canadian policy makers and public opinion over soft-wood lumber exports and cross border traffic may lead to a rethink about the terms of free trade with the US. The Democratic party's apparent preference for a more protectionist trade stance will be an important factor in the years to come. We have moved from a majority government to a stable minority government where these issues are likely to receive heightened attention.
We explore a number of themes that lead logically out from this new environment in the new global economy of 2010. My goal is to help the student become a skillful policy analyst and an independent thinker about policy issues.
About the professor. I am the author of numerous books, monographs, reviews and articles on public policy, urban studies, monetary and fiscal policy and political economy.I am a nationally well known policy expert trained as an economist and political scientist having studied at the Universities of Manitoba, Toronto and the London School of Economics. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and am a full Professor in the Department of Political Science having taught here since 1982.I have given guest lectures and presented papers at a number of universities in Canada and abroad including York University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Adelphi University and the Architectural Association of London, UK. I am regularly engaged in public policy debates in the media and participate in the political life of Canada. I have been consulted by the Government of Canada, the Governments of Ontario, Manitoba, B.C. and Saskatchewan and members of the Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties .My research work on public finance has attracted attention from politicians, researchers and academics in the United States, Great Britain and France. I communicate my research to leading newspapers in Britain, the United States and Canada as well as to electronic media and more conventional scholarly sources. I have also worked as a housing economist, urban planning consultant and an economic consultant. I have also run as a candidate for elected office at the city level.
Texts and Basic Background Readings:(Note texts will be available at the Concordia Co-operative Book Store on Bishop St just below Sherbrooke)
Harold Chorney, The Deficit Papers,Montreal: 2010 ed..(available through me)
Joseph Stiglitz, Free Fall:America,Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Hassan Bougrine, Ian Parker and Mario Seccareccia eds. Introducing Microeconomic Analysis
Mario Seccareccia and Hassan Bougrine Introducing Macroeconomic Analysis
Caroline Lucas and Michael Woodlin , Green alternatives to Globalization
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist ? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror
Basic background readings:
Revisiting Deficit hysteria in Labour/Le travail fall 2004.pp.245-258.(available on internet)
The Finance Crisis and Rescue, The Rotman School of Management, 2008 (recommended)
Stephen Clarkson, Uncle Sam and US
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror (text)
Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans :The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (recommended)
Kevin Phillips, Bad Money:Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism Viking 2008 (recommended reading)
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud(recommended reading)
Caroline Lucas&Michael Woodin: Green Alternatives to Globalization A Manifesto (text)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Simon and Schuster, 1997.(recommended rerading)
Daniel Drache, Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America(recommended reading)
John Dean , Conservatives without Conscience (recommended reading)
George Soros, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets :The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means(Public Affairs)(recomended reading)
Thomas Kean& Lee Hamilton et al, The 9/11 Report The National Commisssion on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (recommended reading)
Tim Lewis, In the Long Run We're All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint. (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, 2001.( recommended )
Joseph Stiglitz : The Roaring Nineties: A New Twist on the World's Most Prosperous Decade( recommended reading)
Harold Chorney, The Economic Benefits of Linguistic Duality in Albert Breton, The Economics of Bilingualism, Ottawa:Canadian Heritage, 1998.(recommended reading also may be available on the internet)
Harold Chorney and Philip Hansen, Toward a Humanist Political Economy, Black Rose, Montreal, 1992. .(recomended reading)
Bai Gao, Japan's Economic Dilemma:The institutional origins of prosperity and stagnation, Cambridge university Press, 2001.
Phillipe Legrain, Open World The Truth about Globalization, 2002, Abacus Books (recommended reading)
Noam Chomsky, 9/11, NY: Open media Book, Seven Stories press,: 2001.(recommended reading)
Lewis Lapham, Gag Rule: On the Supression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy (recommended reading)
Doris Sommer, Bilingual Aesthetics (recommended)
George Grant, Lament for a Nation.
Lloyd Axworthy, Navigating a New World:Canada's Global Future (recommended reading)
The Honourable Michael Kirby &the Honourable Margorie Lebreton co chair, The Health of Canadians: The Federal Role, Final Report on the state of the Health Care System in Canada, Vol Six:Recommendations for Reform, (recommended reading)
Jagdish Bhagwati, A Stream of Windows:Unsettling Reflections on Trade, Immigration and Democracy (recommended reading)
Jim Stanford,Paper Boom, CCPA, 1999.
Lars Osburg &Pierre Fortin, Unnecessary Debts, Toronto, Lorimer, 1996.
Andrew Jackson,et al, Falling Behind:The State of Working Canada, 2000
Bob Rae, The Three Questions:Prosperity and the Public Good, Toronto Penguin, 1998.
Daniel Drache & Terry Sullivan,eds. Health Reform: Public Success/Private Failure NY: Routledge, 1999
Michael Rachlis & Carol Kushner, Strong Medicine,Toronto:Harper Collins, 1994.(recommended)
Linda McQuaig, The Cult of Impotence:Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy, Viking 1998.
Linda McQuaig, Shooting the Hippo, Viking, 1995.(recommended reading)
Thomas Palley, Plenty of Nothing, The downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism, Princeton University Press, 1998.
Colleen Fuller, Caring For Profit:How Corporations are Taking Over Canada's Health Care System (recommended reading)
Stephen McBride and John Shields, Dismantling a Nation:The transition to Corporate Rule in Canada.Halifax, Fernwood, 1997.
Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access, Tarcher, Putnam Penguin, New York, 2000.
The Empathetic civilization: the race to global Consciousness in a world of crisis.N.Y.:Tarcher Putnam Penguin, 2009
John Grieve Smith, There is a Better Way: A New Economic Agenda, London:Anthem Pres, 2001.
Paul Omerod, Butterfly Economics, NY: Pantheon Books, 2000.
Daniel Lazare, What's Killing Our Cities and How We Can Stop It, New York:Harcourt, 2001
Edmund P.Fowler & David Siegel, Urban Policy Issues :Canadian Perspectives, Toronto:Oxford University Press.,2002.
Andrew Sancton, Merger Mania: The Assault on Local Government, Montreal: 2000.
Harold Chorney, Review of Anrew Sancton's book in Canadian Journal of Regional Science.
Alan Broadbent Urban Nation:Why we need to give power back to the cities to make Canada strong, Harper Collins,2008.
Harold Chorney , City of Dreams: Social Theory and the Urban Experience, Nelson, 1990
Mark Kingwell, Concrete Reveries:Consciousness and the City, Viking, 2008
Key Web sites:
www.cec.org, web site of the North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation.
www. ville.Montreal.qc.Ca, web site of the city of Montreal
IMF; OECD; Eurostat; U.S.Treasury; U.S. Bureau of Labour statistics; Statistics Canada.
GRADE:
The grade will be based on a final exam 50 % and a mid term test or an essay 50 %.
TOPICS:
1. Introduction and overview. How does public policy analysis work? The role of interdisciplinarity. Research techniques. Policy and values.Policy and the political process. Globalization and trade.
Policy after the market crash, the credit crisis and the post 9/11 world.
Readings: 9/11 report; Drache.The Rotman school; Phillips, Soros, Chorney blog items on credit crisis, manias panics and bailouts, and the Keynesian revival,Ha-Joon Chang, Stiglitz.Clarkson.
2. The Return of Keynesian economics in public policy.Obama, Bush, McCain, Clinton (Hillary and Bill) and the revival of Keynes in the US. Canadian fiscal conservatism . Public finance.The debate about deficits,surpluses, debt and employment. The return of regulation after Enron, Madoff, the crash on Wall street, the banking crisis, the dot com bubble bursting and the credit crisis and sub-prime housing market.
Readings: Galbraith; Chorney on revisiting deficit hysteria; on deficits; Tim Lewis , Chorney blog items on revival of Keynes and the financial crisis.Chorney paper on quantitative easing and the crisis.Chorney on the role of public enterprise and regulation in The deficit papers. Chorney U tube items on Keynesianism, financial crisis and deficits and debt.
3. The Challenge of Protecting our Health care system. The Canadian, British and American models. Federal provincial disputes over health care. The Romanow Commission. Alberta versus the Federal Government. Market versus public approaches. The American health care debate. The question of affordability.
Readings:Fuller, Romanow and Kirby Reports available on the internet;Drache and Sullivan; Rachlis and Kushner.Canadian Health Information data base.Clarkson.The New York Times and the Wall Street journal, Huffington post and Salon magazine.
4. The rise and fall of the mega-city of Montreal. The background, the debate, the election and the demerger referenda.The fall election. The Mayor and Council.Scandal at city hall. Budgetary questions.The problem of homelessness. A federal role in cities ? The challenge for local democracy and economic development.
.Readings: Sancton; Aubin; Broadbent;Chorney , Mark Kingwell.
5. Managing the global economy.Corporate behaviour. The problem of capital flows. The Argentine debt crisis.Latin American contagion. The need for new financial architecture. The Tobin tax, debt repayment standstills and reworking exchange rates. Market disorder versus regulated management. Turbulence in Venezuela. Canada and Latin America.Venezuela& oil.The Brazilian third way.The policy stance of the new Japanese government with respect to globalization.
Readings: Galbraith; Stiglitz;internet on Argentina and debt crisis and Venezuela.Clarkson on Nafta; Bai Gao on Japan
6. Environmental challenges. NAFTA and managing the environment.The tension between economic growth and the environment.The Kyoto accord. Globalization and Green Politics ? Hurricane Katrina and civil preparedness.Dion's Green shift.
Readings: Clarkson; Drache; Bhagwati; internet, Lucas and Woodlin Green manifesto
7. Bilingualism: A Canadian defining characteristic.The" Spanish challenge " in the United States.
Readings: Chorney in Albert Breton; Huntington on the Hispanic Challenge; Sommer on Bilingual Aesthetics.
8.. Canada in a global world; Canadian foreign policy in the era of NAFTA and 9/11. Our security. Our relationship with the United States. The Axworthy legacy. From Axworthy to Manly to Graham to Pettigrew. The missile defense controversy. A new way forward ? The clash of civilizations ? Chomsky versus Huntington.
Readings: Drache;9/11 report;Chomsky ;Huntington; Axworthy.
9. The energy crunch. Alberta and the problem of fiscal federalism. Sharing the wealth of regional resources. Canadian oil and American needs, a strategic partnership. The future of free trade.
Readings:Clarkson; tba.
Weekly assignments: September: Read the Revisiting deficit hysteria (internet) and Manias panics and bailouts essays. The first is on the net the second is in my blog Jan.2009 Begin reading Clarkson and Stiglitz.
Readings Sept 30 The deficit papers chapters; start with ch. on Keynes, the new introduction to collection, and deficit hysteria.
Essay assignment: Due the first week of November Thursday Nov.5.
Write an essay of 12-15 pages on one of the following topics drawn from the course . Be sure to use a manual of style and properly cite sources and providea bibliography. You should use books, periodical literature and internet sources that are properly noted.
Topics :
1. Discuss the debate over deficits, surpluses and debts. evaluate the Obama stimulus as compared to the Harper one .
2. Explain the origins of the recent financial crash. What role did deregulation and laissez-faire play in this crash. What has been the experience of financial panics and crashes in history.
3. Compare Keynes' theory of unemployment and anti-recession policy with that of the monetarists.
4. Explore the problem of inflation in a capitalist economy. Can moderate inflation be compatible with real economic growth and low unemployment.
5. What led to the eclipse of Keynes from 1974 to 2008.
6. Explore the oil industry and the global pricing system for oil.
7. What is the history of Canadian health care. How does the Canadian system compare to the American debate over health care.
8. Explore the origins of neo-conservatism. How was it able to have such a lasting large impact upon western societies.
9. Discuss the debt crisis and dollar currency boards in Latin America and their impact upon Argentina.
10.Compare and contrast the argument of Noam Chomsky with respect to American power as opposed to the work of Samuel Huntington.
11. Examine the history and evolution of the debate over global warming and Canada's policy stance toward this critical issue.
12. What has been the Canadian foreign policy orientation. what should it be.
13.Examine the state of free trade between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.Explore the evolution of the doctrine, its consequences for Canada and its likely future evolution.
POLI 363/2 Course outline
Fall, 2010 . Course outline(under construction)
Canadian Public Policy :Eight Policy Problems
Professor Harold Chorney
"In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University's
control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject
to change".
e mail blmsbry36@gmail.com, Office hours tba.
Course synopsis: This course introduces students to the analysis of selected contemporary public policy problems. We select eight policy issues and examine them intensively over the next 13 weeks. The course is research oriented and requires students to spend time seeking material on the internet and in the library as well as reading extensively in each of the areas from the list of works provided. There is no formal text that covers all of these areas. However, several works including a collection of readings on the problems of public finance and 2 texts on introducing micro and macroeconomic analysis are assigned as texts. Despite the large class size we will endeavour to have informed discussion and debate in each class. This, however, obliges students to do their work outside of class in order to insure that discussion and debate is well informed and based on research rather than uninformed opinion.
The world of public policy has shifted dramatically during the past few years. The collapse in the stock and financial markets in 2007 and 2008 and early 2009; the pricking of the real estate bubble; the crisis in asset backed commercial paper;the implosion in derivatives; the spate of corporate scandals, fraud and corruption; the sub -prime mortgage collapse in the U.S. and its impact upon the banking system in the U.S.and Great Britain; the general global financial paralysis that followed this collapse; the terrible events of September 11th ,2001; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tragedy of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast and the recent oil spill in the Gulf have dramatically shifted public opinion in both Canada and the United States and to some extent globally as well.
What was once seen as impossible or passé in terms of government intervention in the economy has now once again been placed at the top of the agenda. Reregulation, intervention,investment in infrastructure and long term planning and environmentalism as opposed to laissez-faire and growth at all costs and even budget deficits as deliberate policy are back on the agenda. After thirty plus years in the shadows, Keynesian policy is once again somewhat fashionable and even celebrated Corporate executives from finance, manufacturing and transportation led the call for intervention, stimulus, bailout and reregulation.The once much vaunted theory of perfectly rational markets and laissez-faire is now once again passé. In recent months there has been an attempt led by right wing Republicans in the U.S. and Conservative politicians in the U.K to reassert sound finance principles and argue that Keynesian stimulus has failed. But the evidence is not convincing. The U.S. non partisan bureau of the budget has recently reported that the American stimulus was effective in both lowering the unemployment rate and promoting geowth and economic recovery.The problem has been that the stimulus was on the small side. More is needed if results are to improve. But politically this will be difficult to accomplish.
Keynesian New Deal style policy proposals for reinvestment in infrastructure and fiscal stimulus were advocated by leading American figures like Larry Summers, the former US secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard university and now President Obama's principal economic advisor, Robert Reich, the former US Labour secretary, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and even Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger of California. President Barack Obama has implemented a 787 U.S. billion dollar Keynesian stimulus which is designed to reverse much of the damage of the deep recession that followed the financial collapse.A second phase is now necessary but the Congress seems poised to reject any such plan.
The Republicans seem rejeuvenated by the radical right wing tea party movement. We shall see what this translates into in the mid term elections. In Canada the clash of political opponents seems less dramatic since the Harper government rather pragmatically endorsed a small but significant stimulus package and the Liberals under the pressure of events abandoned, perhaps only temporarily, their previous hostility to deficit finance.
The re-election of the Bush Republicans to a second term had significant implications for Canada.The crisis in management of the natural disaster following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina raised some interesting questions about the balance of political forces in the US. The quagmire in Iraq greatly increased dissatisfaction with the Bush Republicans .The race for the Presidency between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain turned into not just a major debate about Iraq but also the future direction of the American economy and the role of fiscal and monetary policy. The Keynesian inclined Barack Obama and the Democrats won the election decisively and policy has shifted accordingly.This will eventually have a major impact upon policy in Canada.
The American Congress at the behest of President Bush had enacted a significant stimulus package which had resulted in a modest Keynes style deficit of about 3 % of the GDP.The Obama stimulus was much larger and amounted to over 6 % of the GDP. In this respect because of different circumstances the extreme fiscal conservative orthodoxy of Canada's political parties is now overshadowed by the rediscovery of Keynesian technique in the USA. The refusal to think about the wisdom of stimulus facilitated by deficit spending in Canada now looks and is outdated and anachronistic.Under the pressure of the changed circumstances the Canadian Harper government finally moved to introduce and have passed a very modest 40 billion dollar stimulus to deal with the recession in Canada.It now no longer calls for an immediate balanced budget or the old now untimely call for balanced budgets ''come hell or high water" that Paul Martin and the Liberals articulated in the early 1990s.This is a major shift in policy.
However, the recent Toronto G20 meeting reasserted the claim of conservative central bankers like Jean Claude Trichet of the European Central bank and the current head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn that the stimulus moment had now passed and fiscal tightening was now preferred.
The energy crisis which saw oil prices rise to close to $150 a barrel from below $30 just two years before has had an enormous impact upon public opinion in both countries.They have now fallen to the 70 dollar range.This spike in prices contributed to the recession. Since Canada is a net oil exporter and very rich in energy supplies, particularly in Alberta and its oil sands, while the US is a major net importer of oil the economic impact has been quite different in both countries. The issue of the cartel that controls oil prices and its impact upon employment, growth and inflation will continue to be a hot issue in both Canada and the U.S.
Canada must now reassess its historic relationship to the
United States in the light of the on going security needs of both the United States and Canada and our increasing economic dependence upon American export markets in an era where globalization and outsourcing pose important challenges to our prosperity.The frustration of Canadian policy makers and public opinion over soft-wood lumber exports and cross border traffic may lead to a rethink about the terms of free trade with the US. The Democratic party's apparent preference for a more protectionist trade stance will be an important factor in the years to come. We have moved from a majority government to a stable minority government where these issues are likely to receive heightened attention.
We explore a number of themes that lead logically out from this new environment in the new global economy of 2010. My goal is to help the student become a skillful policy analyst and an independent thinker about policy issues.
About the professor. I am the author of numerous books, monographs, reviews and articles on public policy, urban studies, monetary and fiscal policy and political economy.I am a nationally well known policy expert trained as an economist and political scientist having studied at the Universities of Manitoba, Toronto and the London School of Economics. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and am a full Professor in the Department of Political Science having taught here since 1982.I have given guest lectures and presented papers at a number of universities in Canada and abroad including York University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Adelphi University and the Architectural Association of London, UK. I am regularly engaged in public policy debates in the media and participate in the political life of Canada. I have been consulted by the Government of Canada, the Governments of Ontario, Manitoba, B.C. and Saskatchewan and members of the Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties .My research work on public finance has attracted attention from politicians, researchers and academics in the United States, Great Britain and France. I communicate my research to leading newspapers in Britain, the United States and Canada as well as to electronic media and more conventional scholarly sources. I have also worked as a housing economist, urban planning consultant and an economic consultant. I have also run as a candidate for elected office at the city level.
Texts and Basic Background Readings:(Note texts will be available at the Concordia Co-operative Book Store on Bishop St just below Sherbrooke)
Harold Chorney, The Deficit Papers,Montreal: 2010 ed..(available through me)
Joseph Stiglitz, Free Fall:America,Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Hassan Bougrine, Ian Parker and Mario Seccareccia eds. Introducing Microeconomic Analysis
Mario Seccareccia and Hassan Bougrine Introducing Macroeconomic Analysis
Caroline Lucas and Michael Woodlin , Green alternatives to Globalization
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist ? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror
Basic background readings:
Revisiting Deficit hysteria in Labour/Le travail fall 2004.pp.245-258.(available on internet)
The Finance Crisis and Rescue, The Rotman School of Management, 2008 (recommended)
Stephen Clarkson, Uncle Sam and US
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror (text)
Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans :The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (recommended)
Kevin Phillips, Bad Money:Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism Viking 2008 (recommended reading)
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud(recommended reading)
Caroline Lucas&Michael Woodin: Green Alternatives to Globalization A Manifesto (text)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Simon and Schuster, 1997.(recommended rerading)
Daniel Drache, Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America(recommended reading)
John Dean , Conservatives without Conscience (recommended reading)
George Soros, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets :The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means(Public Affairs)(recomended reading)
Thomas Kean& Lee Hamilton et al, The 9/11 Report The National Commisssion on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (recommended reading)
Tim Lewis, In the Long Run We're All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint. (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, 2001.( recommended )
Joseph Stiglitz : The Roaring Nineties: A New Twist on the World's Most Prosperous Decade( recommended reading)
Harold Chorney, The Economic Benefits of Linguistic Duality in Albert Breton, The Economics of Bilingualism, Ottawa:Canadian Heritage, 1998.(recommended reading also may be available on the internet)
Harold Chorney and Philip Hansen, Toward a Humanist Political Economy, Black Rose, Montreal, 1992. .(recomended reading)
Bai Gao, Japan's Economic Dilemma:The institutional origins of prosperity and stagnation, Cambridge university Press, 2001.
Phillipe Legrain, Open World The Truth about Globalization, 2002, Abacus Books (recommended reading)
Noam Chomsky, 9/11, NY: Open media Book, Seven Stories press,: 2001.(recommended reading)
Lewis Lapham, Gag Rule: On the Supression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy (recommended reading)
Doris Sommer, Bilingual Aesthetics (recommended)
George Grant, Lament for a Nation.
Lloyd Axworthy, Navigating a New World:Canada's Global Future (recommended reading)
The Honourable Michael Kirby &the Honourable Margorie Lebreton co chair, The Health of Canadians: The Federal Role, Final Report on the state of the Health Care System in Canada, Vol Six:Recommendations for Reform, (recommended reading)
Jagdish Bhagwati, A Stream of Windows:Unsettling Reflections on Trade, Immigration and Democracy (recommended reading)
Jim Stanford,Paper Boom, CCPA, 1999.
Lars Osburg &Pierre Fortin, Unnecessary Debts, Toronto, Lorimer, 1996.
Andrew Jackson,et al, Falling Behind:The State of Working Canada, 2000
Bob Rae, The Three Questions:Prosperity and the Public Good, Toronto Penguin, 1998.
Daniel Drache & Terry Sullivan,eds. Health Reform: Public Success/Private Failure NY: Routledge, 1999
Michael Rachlis & Carol Kushner, Strong Medicine,Toronto:Harper Collins, 1994.(recommended)
Linda McQuaig, The Cult of Impotence:Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy, Viking 1998.
Linda McQuaig, Shooting the Hippo, Viking, 1995.(recommended reading)
Thomas Palley, Plenty of Nothing, The downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism, Princeton University Press, 1998.
Colleen Fuller, Caring For Profit:How Corporations are Taking Over Canada's Health Care System (recommended reading)
Stephen McBride and John Shields, Dismantling a Nation:The transition to Corporate Rule in Canada.Halifax, Fernwood, 1997.
Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access, Tarcher, Putnam Penguin, New York, 2000.
The Empathetic civilization: the race to global Consciousness in a world of crisis.N.Y.:Tarcher Putnam Penguin, 2009
John Grieve Smith, There is a Better Way: A New Economic Agenda, London:Anthem Pres, 2001.
Paul Omerod, Butterfly Economics, NY: Pantheon Books, 2000.
Daniel Lazare, What's Killing Our Cities and How We Can Stop It, New York:Harcourt, 2001
Edmund P.Fowler & David Siegel, Urban Policy Issues :Canadian Perspectives, Toronto:Oxford University Press.,2002.
Andrew Sancton, Merger Mania: The Assault on Local Government, Montreal: 2000.
Harold Chorney, Review of Anrew Sancton's book in Canadian Journal of Regional Science.
Alan Broadbent Urban Nation:Why we need to give power back to the cities to make Canada strong, Harper Collins,2008.
Harold Chorney , City of Dreams: Social Theory and the Urban Experience, Nelson, 1990
Mark Kingwell, Concrete Reveries:Consciousness and the City, Viking, 2008
Key Web sites:
www.cec.org, web site of the North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation.
www. ville.Montreal.qc.Ca, web site of the city of Montreal
IMF; OECD; Eurostat; U.S.Treasury; U.S. Bureau of Labour statistics; Statistics Canada.
GRADE:
The grade will be based on a final exam 50 % and a mid term test or an essay 50 %.
TOPICS:
1. Introduction and overview. How does public policy analysis work? The role of interdisciplinarity. Research techniques. Policy and values.Policy and the political process. Globalization and trade.
Policy after the market crash, the credit crisis and the post 9/11 world.
Readings: 9/11 report; Drache.The Rotman school; Phillips, Soros, Chorney blog items on credit crisis, manias panics and bailouts, and the Keynesian revival,Ha-Joon Chang, Stiglitz.Clarkson.
2. The Return of Keynesian economics in public policy.Obama, Bush, McCain, Clinton (Hillary and Bill) and the revival of Keynes in the US. Canadian fiscal conservatism . Public finance.The debate about deficits,surpluses, debt and employment. The return of regulation after Enron, Madoff, the crash on Wall street, the banking crisis, the dot com bubble bursting and the credit crisis and sub-prime housing market.
Readings: Galbraith; Chorney on revisiting deficit hysteria; on deficits; Tim Lewis , Chorney blog items on revival of Keynes and the financial crisis.Chorney paper on quantitative easing and the crisis.Chorney on the role of public enterprise and regulation in The deficit papers. Chorney U tube items on Keynesianism, financial crisis and deficits and debt.
3. The Challenge of Protecting our Health care system. The Canadian, British and American models. Federal provincial disputes over health care. The Romanow Commission. Alberta versus the Federal Government. Market versus public approaches. The American health care debate. The question of affordability.
Readings:Fuller, Romanow and Kirby Reports available on the internet;Drache and Sullivan; Rachlis and Kushner.Canadian Health Information data base.Clarkson.The New York Times and the Wall Street journal, Huffington post and Salon magazine.
4. The rise and fall of the mega-city of Montreal. The background, the debate, the election and the demerger referenda.The fall election. The Mayor and Council.Scandal at city hall. Budgetary questions.The problem of homelessness. A federal role in cities ? The challenge for local democracy and economic development.
.Readings: Sancton; Aubin; Broadbent;Chorney , Mark Kingwell.
5. Managing the global economy.Corporate behaviour. The problem of capital flows. The Argentine debt crisis.Latin American contagion. The need for new financial architecture. The Tobin tax, debt repayment standstills and reworking exchange rates. Market disorder versus regulated management. Turbulence in Venezuela. Canada and Latin America.Venezuela& oil.The Brazilian third way.The policy stance of the new Japanese government with respect to globalization.
Readings: Galbraith; Stiglitz;internet on Argentina and debt crisis and Venezuela.Clarkson on Nafta; Bai Gao on Japan
6. Environmental challenges. NAFTA and managing the environment.The tension between economic growth and the environment.The Kyoto accord. Globalization and Green Politics ? Hurricane Katrina and civil preparedness.Dion's Green shift.
Readings: Clarkson; Drache; Bhagwati; internet, Lucas and Woodlin Green manifesto
7. Bilingualism: A Canadian defining characteristic.The" Spanish challenge " in the United States.
Readings: Chorney in Albert Breton; Huntington on the Hispanic Challenge; Sommer on Bilingual Aesthetics.
8.. Canada in a global world; Canadian foreign policy in the era of NAFTA and 9/11. Our security. Our relationship with the United States. The Axworthy legacy. From Axworthy to Manly to Graham to Pettigrew. The missile defense controversy. A new way forward ? The clash of civilizations ? Chomsky versus Huntington.
Readings: Drache;9/11 report;Chomsky ;Huntington; Axworthy.
9. The energy crunch. Alberta and the problem of fiscal federalism. Sharing the wealth of regional resources. Canadian oil and American needs, a strategic partnership. The future of free trade.
Readings:Clarkson; tba.
Weekly assignments: September: Read the Revisiting deficit hysteria (internet) and Manias panics and bailouts essays. The first is on the net the second is in my blog Jan.2009 Begin reading Clarkson and Stiglitz.
Readings Sept 30 The deficit papers chapters; start with ch. on Keynes, the new introduction to collection, and deficit hysteria.
Essay assignment: Due the first week of November Thursday Nov.5.
Write an essay of 12-15 pages on one of the following topics drawn from the course . Be sure to use a manual of style and properly cite sources and providea bibliography. You should use books, periodical literature and internet sources that are properly noted.
Topics :
1. Discuss the debate over deficits, surpluses and debts. evaluate the Obama stimulus as compared to the Harper one .
2. Explain the origins of the recent financial crash. What role did deregulation and laissez-faire play in this crash. What has been the experience of financial panics and crashes in history.
3. Compare Keynes' theory of unemployment and anti-recession policy with that of the monetarists.
4. Explore the problem of inflation in a capitalist economy. Can moderate inflation be compatible with real economic growth and low unemployment.
5. What led to the eclipse of Keynes from 1974 to 2008.
6. Explore the oil industry and the global pricing system for oil.
7. What is the history of Canadian health care. How does the Canadian system compare to the American debate over health care.
8. Explore the origins of neo-conservatism. How was it able to have such a lasting large impact upon western societies.
9. Discuss the debt crisis and dollar currency boards in Latin America and their impact upon Argentina.
10.Compare and contrast the argument of Noam Chomsky with respect to American power as opposed to the work of Samuel Huntington.
11. Examine the history and evolution of the debate over global warming and Canada's policy stance toward this critical issue.
12. What has been the Canadian foreign policy orientation. what should it be.
13.Examine the state of free trade between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.Explore the evolution of the doctrine, its consequences for Canada and its likely future evolution.
Canadian Public Policy :Eight Policy Problems
Professor Harold Chorney
"In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University's
control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject
to change".
e mail blmsbry36@gmail.com, Office hours tba.
Course synopsis: This course introduces students to the analysis of selected contemporary public policy problems. We select eight policy issues and examine them intensively over the next 13 weeks. The course is research oriented and requires students to spend time seeking material on the internet and in the library as well as reading extensively in each of the areas from the list of works provided. There is no formal text that covers all of these areas. However, several works including a collection of readings on the problems of public finance and 2 texts on introducing micro and macroeconomic analysis are assigned as texts. Despite the large class size we will endeavour to have informed discussion and debate in each class. This, however, obliges students to do their work outside of class in order to insure that discussion and debate is well informed and based on research rather than uninformed opinion.
The world of public policy has shifted dramatically during the past few years. The collapse in the stock and financial markets in 2007 and 2008 and early 2009; the pricking of the real estate bubble; the crisis in asset backed commercial paper;the implosion in derivatives; the spate of corporate scandals, fraud and corruption; the sub -prime mortgage collapse in the U.S. and its impact upon the banking system in the U.S.and Great Britain; the general global financial paralysis that followed this collapse; the terrible events of September 11th ,2001; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tragedy of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast and the recent oil spill in the Gulf have dramatically shifted public opinion in both Canada and the United States and to some extent globally as well.
What was once seen as impossible or passé in terms of government intervention in the economy has now once again been placed at the top of the agenda. Reregulation, intervention,investment in infrastructure and long term planning and environmentalism as opposed to laissez-faire and growth at all costs and even budget deficits as deliberate policy are back on the agenda. After thirty plus years in the shadows, Keynesian policy is once again somewhat fashionable and even celebrated Corporate executives from finance, manufacturing and transportation led the call for intervention, stimulus, bailout and reregulation.The once much vaunted theory of perfectly rational markets and laissez-faire is now once again passé. In recent months there has been an attempt led by right wing Republicans in the U.S. and Conservative politicians in the U.K to reassert sound finance principles and argue that Keynesian stimulus has failed. But the evidence is not convincing. The U.S. non partisan bureau of the budget has recently reported that the American stimulus was effective in both lowering the unemployment rate and promoting geowth and economic recovery.The problem has been that the stimulus was on the small side. More is needed if results are to improve. But politically this will be difficult to accomplish.
Keynesian New Deal style policy proposals for reinvestment in infrastructure and fiscal stimulus were advocated by leading American figures like Larry Summers, the former US secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard university and now President Obama's principal economic advisor, Robert Reich, the former US Labour secretary, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and even Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger of California. President Barack Obama has implemented a 787 U.S. billion dollar Keynesian stimulus which is designed to reverse much of the damage of the deep recession that followed the financial collapse.A second phase is now necessary but the Congress seems poised to reject any such plan.
The Republicans seem rejeuvenated by the radical right wing tea party movement. We shall see what this translates into in the mid term elections. In Canada the clash of political opponents seems less dramatic since the Harper government rather pragmatically endorsed a small but significant stimulus package and the Liberals under the pressure of events abandoned, perhaps only temporarily, their previous hostility to deficit finance.
The re-election of the Bush Republicans to a second term had significant implications for Canada.The crisis in management of the natural disaster following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina raised some interesting questions about the balance of political forces in the US. The quagmire in Iraq greatly increased dissatisfaction with the Bush Republicans .The race for the Presidency between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain turned into not just a major debate about Iraq but also the future direction of the American economy and the role of fiscal and monetary policy. The Keynesian inclined Barack Obama and the Democrats won the election decisively and policy has shifted accordingly.This will eventually have a major impact upon policy in Canada.
The American Congress at the behest of President Bush had enacted a significant stimulus package which had resulted in a modest Keynes style deficit of about 3 % of the GDP.The Obama stimulus was much larger and amounted to over 6 % of the GDP. In this respect because of different circumstances the extreme fiscal conservative orthodoxy of Canada's political parties is now overshadowed by the rediscovery of Keynesian technique in the USA. The refusal to think about the wisdom of stimulus facilitated by deficit spending in Canada now looks and is outdated and anachronistic.Under the pressure of the changed circumstances the Canadian Harper government finally moved to introduce and have passed a very modest 40 billion dollar stimulus to deal with the recession in Canada.It now no longer calls for an immediate balanced budget or the old now untimely call for balanced budgets ''come hell or high water" that Paul Martin and the Liberals articulated in the early 1990s.This is a major shift in policy.
However, the recent Toronto G20 meeting reasserted the claim of conservative central bankers like Jean Claude Trichet of the European Central bank and the current head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn that the stimulus moment had now passed and fiscal tightening was now preferred.
The energy crisis which saw oil prices rise to close to $150 a barrel from below $30 just two years before has had an enormous impact upon public opinion in both countries.They have now fallen to the 70 dollar range.This spike in prices contributed to the recession. Since Canada is a net oil exporter and very rich in energy supplies, particularly in Alberta and its oil sands, while the US is a major net importer of oil the economic impact has been quite different in both countries. The issue of the cartel that controls oil prices and its impact upon employment, growth and inflation will continue to be a hot issue in both Canada and the U.S.
Canada must now reassess its historic relationship to the
United States in the light of the on going security needs of both the United States and Canada and our increasing economic dependence upon American export markets in an era where globalization and outsourcing pose important challenges to our prosperity.The frustration of Canadian policy makers and public opinion over soft-wood lumber exports and cross border traffic may lead to a rethink about the terms of free trade with the US. The Democratic party's apparent preference for a more protectionist trade stance will be an important factor in the years to come. We have moved from a majority government to a stable minority government where these issues are likely to receive heightened attention.
We explore a number of themes that lead logically out from this new environment in the new global economy of 2010. My goal is to help the student become a skillful policy analyst and an independent thinker about policy issues.
About the professor. I am the author of numerous books, monographs, reviews and articles on public policy, urban studies, monetary and fiscal policy and political economy.I am a nationally well known policy expert trained as an economist and political scientist having studied at the Universities of Manitoba, Toronto and the London School of Economics. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and am a full Professor in the Department of Political Science having taught here since 1982.I have given guest lectures and presented papers at a number of universities in Canada and abroad including York University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Adelphi University and the Architectural Association of London, UK. I am regularly engaged in public policy debates in the media and participate in the political life of Canada. I have been consulted by the Government of Canada, the Governments of Ontario, Manitoba, B.C. and Saskatchewan and members of the Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties .My research work on public finance has attracted attention from politicians, researchers and academics in the United States, Great Britain and France. I communicate my research to leading newspapers in Britain, the United States and Canada as well as to electronic media and more conventional scholarly sources. I have also worked as a housing economist, urban planning consultant and an economic consultant. I have also run as a candidate for elected office at the city level.
Texts and Basic Background Readings:(Note texts will be available at the Concordia Co-operative Book Store on Bishop St just below Sherbrooke)
Harold Chorney, The Deficit Papers,Montreal: 2010 ed..(available through me)
Joseph Stiglitz, Free Fall:America,Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Hassan Bougrine, Ian Parker and Mario Seccareccia eds. Introducing Microeconomic Analysis
Mario Seccareccia and Hassan Bougrine Introducing Macroeconomic Analysis
Caroline Lucas and Michael Woodlin , Green alternatives to Globalization
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist ? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror
Basic background readings:
Revisiting Deficit hysteria in Labour/Le travail fall 2004.pp.245-258.(available on internet)
The Finance Crisis and Rescue, The Rotman School of Management, 2008 (recommended)
Stephen Clarkson, Uncle Sam and US
Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist? Transborder Governance under Globalization and the War on Terror (text)
Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans :The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (recommended)
Kevin Phillips, Bad Money:Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism Viking 2008 (recommended reading)
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud(recommended reading)
Caroline Lucas&Michael Woodin: Green Alternatives to Globalization A Manifesto (text)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Simon and Schuster, 1997.(recommended rerading)
Daniel Drache, Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America(recommended reading)
John Dean , Conservatives without Conscience (recommended reading)
George Soros, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets :The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means(Public Affairs)(recomended reading)
Thomas Kean& Lee Hamilton et al, The 9/11 Report The National Commisssion on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (recommended reading)
Tim Lewis, In the Long Run We're All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint. (recommended reading)
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, 2001.( recommended )
Joseph Stiglitz : The Roaring Nineties: A New Twist on the World's Most Prosperous Decade( recommended reading)
Harold Chorney, The Economic Benefits of Linguistic Duality in Albert Breton, The Economics of Bilingualism, Ottawa:Canadian Heritage, 1998.(recommended reading also may be available on the internet)
Harold Chorney and Philip Hansen, Toward a Humanist Political Economy, Black Rose, Montreal, 1992. .(recomended reading)
Bai Gao, Japan's Economic Dilemma:The institutional origins of prosperity and stagnation, Cambridge university Press, 2001.
Phillipe Legrain, Open World The Truth about Globalization, 2002, Abacus Books (recommended reading)
Noam Chomsky, 9/11, NY: Open media Book, Seven Stories press,: 2001.(recommended reading)
Lewis Lapham, Gag Rule: On the Supression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy (recommended reading)
Doris Sommer, Bilingual Aesthetics (recommended)
George Grant, Lament for a Nation.
Lloyd Axworthy, Navigating a New World:Canada's Global Future (recommended reading)
The Honourable Michael Kirby &the Honourable Margorie Lebreton co chair, The Health of Canadians: The Federal Role, Final Report on the state of the Health Care System in Canada, Vol Six:Recommendations for Reform, (recommended reading)
Jagdish Bhagwati, A Stream of Windows:Unsettling Reflections on Trade, Immigration and Democracy (recommended reading)
Jim Stanford,Paper Boom, CCPA, 1999.
Lars Osburg &Pierre Fortin, Unnecessary Debts, Toronto, Lorimer, 1996.
Andrew Jackson,et al, Falling Behind:The State of Working Canada, 2000
Bob Rae, The Three Questions:Prosperity and the Public Good, Toronto Penguin, 1998.
Daniel Drache & Terry Sullivan,eds. Health Reform: Public Success/Private Failure NY: Routledge, 1999
Michael Rachlis & Carol Kushner, Strong Medicine,Toronto:Harper Collins, 1994.(recommended)
Linda McQuaig, The Cult of Impotence:Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy, Viking 1998.
Linda McQuaig, Shooting the Hippo, Viking, 1995.(recommended reading)
Thomas Palley, Plenty of Nothing, The downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism, Princeton University Press, 1998.
Colleen Fuller, Caring For Profit:How Corporations are Taking Over Canada's Health Care System (recommended reading)
Stephen McBride and John Shields, Dismantling a Nation:The transition to Corporate Rule in Canada.Halifax, Fernwood, 1997.
Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access, Tarcher, Putnam Penguin, New York, 2000.
The Empathetic civilization: the race to global Consciousness in a world of crisis.N.Y.:Tarcher Putnam Penguin, 2009
John Grieve Smith, There is a Better Way: A New Economic Agenda, London:Anthem Pres, 2001.
Paul Omerod, Butterfly Economics, NY: Pantheon Books, 2000.
Daniel Lazare, What's Killing Our Cities and How We Can Stop It, New York:Harcourt, 2001
Edmund P.Fowler & David Siegel, Urban Policy Issues :Canadian Perspectives, Toronto:Oxford University Press.,2002.
Andrew Sancton, Merger Mania: The Assault on Local Government, Montreal: 2000.
Harold Chorney, Review of Anrew Sancton's book in Canadian Journal of Regional Science.
Alan Broadbent Urban Nation:Why we need to give power back to the cities to make Canada strong, Harper Collins,2008.
Harold Chorney , City of Dreams: Social Theory and the Urban Experience, Nelson, 1990
Mark Kingwell, Concrete Reveries:Consciousness and the City, Viking, 2008
Key Web sites:
www.cec.org, web site of the North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation.
www. ville.Montreal.qc.Ca, web site of the city of Montreal
IMF; OECD; Eurostat; U.S.Treasury; U.S. Bureau of Labour statistics; Statistics Canada.
GRADE:
The grade will be based on a final exam 50 % and a mid term test or an essay 50 %.
TOPICS:
1. Introduction and overview. How does public policy analysis work? The role of interdisciplinarity. Research techniques. Policy and values.Policy and the political process. Globalization and trade.
Policy after the market crash, the credit crisis and the post 9/11 world.
Readings: 9/11 report; Drache.The Rotman school; Phillips, Soros, Chorney blog items on credit crisis, manias panics and bailouts, and the Keynesian revival,Ha-Joon Chang, Stiglitz.Clarkson.
2. The Return of Keynesian economics in public policy.Obama, Bush, McCain, Clinton (Hillary and Bill) and the revival of Keynes in the US. Canadian fiscal conservatism . Public finance.The debate about deficits,surpluses, debt and employment. The return of regulation after Enron, Madoff, the crash on Wall street, the banking crisis, the dot com bubble bursting and the credit crisis and sub-prime housing market.
Readings: Galbraith; Chorney on revisiting deficit hysteria; on deficits; Tim Lewis , Chorney blog items on revival of Keynes and the financial crisis.Chorney paper on quantitative easing and the crisis.Chorney on the role of public enterprise and regulation in The deficit papers. Chorney U tube items on Keynesianism, financial crisis and deficits and debt.
3. The Challenge of Protecting our Health care system. The Canadian, British and American models. Federal provincial disputes over health care. The Romanow Commission. Alberta versus the Federal Government. Market versus public approaches. The American health care debate. The question of affordability.
Readings:Fuller, Romanow and Kirby Reports available on the internet;Drache and Sullivan; Rachlis and Kushner.Canadian Health Information data base.Clarkson.The New York Times and the Wall Street journal, Huffington post and Salon magazine.
4. The rise and fall of the mega-city of Montreal. The background, the debate, the election and the demerger referenda.The fall election. The Mayor and Council.Scandal at city hall. Budgetary questions.The problem of homelessness. A federal role in cities ? The challenge for local democracy and economic development.
.Readings: Sancton; Aubin; Broadbent;Chorney , Mark Kingwell.
5. Managing the global economy.Corporate behaviour. The problem of capital flows. The Argentine debt crisis.Latin American contagion. The need for new financial architecture. The Tobin tax, debt repayment standstills and reworking exchange rates. Market disorder versus regulated management. Turbulence in Venezuela. Canada and Latin America.Venezuela& oil.The Brazilian third way.The policy stance of the new Japanese government with respect to globalization.
Readings: Galbraith; Stiglitz;internet on Argentina and debt crisis and Venezuela.Clarkson on Nafta; Bai Gao on Japan
6. Environmental challenges. NAFTA and managing the environment.The tension between economic growth and the environment.The Kyoto accord. Globalization and Green Politics ? Hurricane Katrina and civil preparedness.Dion's Green shift.
Readings: Clarkson; Drache; Bhagwati; internet, Lucas and Woodlin Green manifesto
7. Bilingualism: A Canadian defining characteristic.The" Spanish challenge " in the United States.
Readings: Chorney in Albert Breton; Huntington on the Hispanic Challenge; Sommer on Bilingual Aesthetics.
8.. Canada in a global world; Canadian foreign policy in the era of NAFTA and 9/11. Our security. Our relationship with the United States. The Axworthy legacy. From Axworthy to Manly to Graham to Pettigrew. The missile defense controversy. A new way forward ? The clash of civilizations ? Chomsky versus Huntington.
Readings: Drache;9/11 report;Chomsky ;Huntington; Axworthy.
9. The energy crunch. Alberta and the problem of fiscal federalism. Sharing the wealth of regional resources. Canadian oil and American needs, a strategic partnership. The future of free trade.
Readings:Clarkson; tba.
Weekly assignments: September: Read the Revisiting deficit hysteria (internet) and Manias panics and bailouts essays. The first is on the net the second is in my blog Jan.2009 Begin reading Clarkson and Stiglitz.
Readings Sept 30 The deficit papers chapters; start with ch. on Keynes, the new introduction to collection, and deficit hysteria.
Essay assignment: Due the first week of November Thursday Nov.5.
Write an essay of 12-15 pages on one of the following topics drawn from the course . Be sure to use a manual of style and properly cite sources and providea bibliography. You should use books, periodical literature and internet sources that are properly noted.
Topics :
1. Discuss the debate over deficits, surpluses and debts. evaluate the Obama stimulus as compared to the Harper one .
2. Explain the origins of the recent financial crash. What role did deregulation and laissez-faire play in this crash. What has been the experience of financial panics and crashes in history.
3. Compare Keynes' theory of unemployment and anti-recession policy with that of the monetarists.
4. Explore the problem of inflation in a capitalist economy. Can moderate inflation be compatible with real economic growth and low unemployment.
5. What led to the eclipse of Keynes from 1974 to 2008.
6. Explore the oil industry and the global pricing system for oil.
7. What is the history of Canadian health care. How does the Canadian system compare to the American debate over health care.
8. Explore the origins of neo-conservatism. How was it able to have such a lasting large impact upon western societies.
9. Discuss the debt crisis and dollar currency boards in Latin America and their impact upon Argentina.
10.Compare and contrast the argument of Noam Chomsky with respect to American power as opposed to the work of Samuel Huntington.
11. Examine the history and evolution of the debate over global warming and Canada's policy stance toward this critical issue.
12. What has been the Canadian foreign policy orientation. what should it be.
13.Examine the state of free trade between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.Explore the evolution of the doctrine, its consequences for Canada and its likely future evolution.
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I am moving my blog from Piczo to blogspot hopefully to avoid the problems that have recently afflicted my blog.
Sept. 19, 2010
I have decided to begin the process of moving my blog from Piczo to blogspot in order to avoid the problems that have afflicted the piczo site. It will take some time to move all the archived material and ensure that it is accessible-it amounts to about 1000 plus pages of material. But rather than see it compromised though the kind of shenanigans that have afflicted my Piczo site, removing the page list and so on I am hoping this site will be better. For my students at Concordia in particular this should quickly solve a lot of problems as I will post the outlines and some of the key readings and papers here asap.
I have decided to begin the process of moving my blog from Piczo to blogspot in order to avoid the problems that have afflicted the piczo site. It will take some time to move all the archived material and ensure that it is accessible-it amounts to about 1000 plus pages of material. But rather than see it compromised though the kind of shenanigans that have afflicted my Piczo site, removing the page list and so on I am hoping this site will be better. For my students at Concordia in particular this should quickly solve a lot of problems as I will post the outlines and some of the key readings and papers here asap.
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