Philip Smith

Sep 10, 2024 | philip635.substack.com | Philip Smith

There has been a great deal of focus on the downward trend in Canada’s real GDP per capita in the past two years. And for good reason. This indicator is normally a sound overall barometer of Canadian economic welfare. But there is another good measure for this same purpose — real household disposable income per capita — and it gives a very different picture. This paper explores the reasons for this difference and discusses the implications.

Jan 2, 2024 | philip635.substack.com | Philip Smith

There has been much concern among economists and policymakers in Canada recently about the decline in real GDP per capita since mid 2022. Real GDP per capita is closely related to average well-being, although there are of course other factors affecting well-being aside from the market income that is measured by GDP. In an earlier paper I showed that real GDP per capita can be expressed as the product of five factors.

Sep 28, 2023 | chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com | Philip Smith |Helena Pickford |Kirsten Christensen |Zixuan Tong

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May 15, 2023 | philip635.substack.com | Philip Smith

Canada’s population increased 2.7% in 2022, a sizeable amount. This was more than double the 1.1% mean annual growth rate since 1972. It even exceeded the 1947-1971 average advance of 2.3%. The rates of increase in 2016-2021 were also above average (excluding the pandemic year 2020), although not by nearly as much as in 2022. What’s going on here? Why is Canada’s population upsurging?