Volume 56, numéro 4, octobre–décembre 1980

EN :

The debate between keynesians and monetarists on the effectiveness of fiscal policy has been going for quite a long time, and all efforts to resolve it have met with little success. While everyone would agree that the controversy can only be resolved on empirical grounds, there is no agreement among the two schools as to what constitutes an appropriate test of their respective theories. In this paper, a small macroeconomic model has been developed which incorporates the major elements of the keynesian-monetarist debate and which can produce either keynesian or monetarist results, depending upon the values taken by the particular sets of coefficients. The model has not been estimated and is not designed, therefore, to evaluate the actual impact of fiscal policy measures in Canada. Rather the coefficients of the model have been either borrowed from existing models or set a priori, in order to identify those aspects or parameters of the model which are most important in determining the effectiveness of fiscal policy. Simulations performed with the model indicate a number of factors that are critical in producing either Keynesian or monetarist results. These are: 1) the expected—real—interest elasticity of private real investment; 2) the substitutability between government bonds, money and other assets; 3) the specification of wage behaviour and the degree of influence of price expectations; 4) the sensitivity of nominal interest rates to changes in the inflationary expectations; 5) the extent to which future taxes are anticipated by consumers and 6) the mechanism for determining the price of exports.

EN :

This article presents a model of inventive activity and capital accumulation. It also suggests ways of estimating optimal investment in research and development and outlines in the same time some econometric problems associated to measurement. In such a model, it has been shown that increases in technical knowledge are fundamentally related to the amount of resources devoted to inventive activity. Thus the role of invention in economic growth is explicitly recognized

EN :

It is often assumed that the negative impact of advertising is the basis from which economic studies in this area are to be undertaken. The authors state that the evidence supporting such a claim is far from obvious. In fact, the suggestion brought forth is that this assumption may be faulty. Specific areas of inquiry are suggested such as the cost of advertising in relation to marketing and manufacturing costs as well as the impact of advertising on GNP. The authors point out that from a demand analysis perspective, the eternal diseconomies in consumption due to advertising as claimed and condemned by economists, is really the result of the consumer's decision making process in the market place. The economists fail to take into account all of the social and psychological forces which impact on consumer behavior. Finally, the authors state that from a supply analysis orientation, no conclusion link has been found between advertising, industrial concentration and market power.

EN :

An analysis of 10 variables caracterising the distribution of the Québec's cities size, permitted identification of 3 distinct phases of evolution of the urban system since 1871. Primatial growth reached a maximum in the 1920s and was followed by a transition-maturation period where, around 1956, the number of centers stabilized at 60. Lognormality was then at a maximum. Since that peak, the metropolisation process induced a new spell of primatial growth.

The Quebec urban structure is still markedly unbalanced, the transition from primacy to lognormality is still going on. Its longing could be explained by the fact that in Quebec the "center-periphery" spatial dualism is doubled with an ethno-linguistic dualism. Without the french-english opposition one can think that the transition period would have resolved rapidly with the development of non-metropolitan industrial complexes.

EN :

This paper surveys the changes since 1972 in the federal tax laws applicable to the Canadian mining industry. Using a partial equilibrium model, we analyse the effect of these changes on the relative prices of the factors of production used by the mining firm. Changes in the provincial tax treatment of the mining industry are not considered. The effects on the mining firm of recent changes in tax legislation are compared to the no-tax and pre-1972 tax systems. A numerical illustration is used to summarize the total net impact of all the changes and to suggest their order of magnitude.

The most striking conclusion to emerge from the analysis is that the net effect of the changes in tax legislation is relatively small due to offsetting provisions. It appears, however, that the tax burden of the industry has increased somewhat as a result of the recent federal changes. In addition, the numerical illustration shows that, in general, the corporate income tax system applied to the Canadian mining industry has consistently favoured the use of capital over current factors of production. Changes in mineral taxation have not altered this result.