Ronald A. Shearer

New Estimates of the Canadian Money Stock: 1871-1967

In this paper, the authors construct historical data series beginning in 1871 for Canadian M1, M2, and monetary base. The new series are at a monthly frequency and use the Bank of Canadas definition of the monetary aggregates. Institutional and reporting changes, however, make perfect backwards extrapolation of the Banks series impossible: there are only end-of-month data rather than average weekly (since January 1994, daily) data and the authors cannot precisely match savings accounts (at chartered banks and trust companies) that are included in the modern monetary aggregates. Their adjustments for these changes and their impact on the aggregates are documented

A history of prices in Canada, 1840-1871: a new wholesale price index

We present a new monthly wholesale price index for Canada, 1840-71, comparing fluctuations in the Canadian macroeconomy with fluctuations in similar U.S. and British indexes. Canadian prices move through distinct phases: the 1840s rise in prices and the decline in the depression of 1848-49; the mid-century economic boom and the 1857 depression; U.S. Civil War inflation and apparent Canadian price insulation through a flexible exchange rate created by U.S. withdrawal from gold; and the non-inflationary boom following Confederation. After adjustment for the U.S. greenback issue, a broad coherence of Canadian, U.S., and British indexes suggests highly integrated commodity markets.

Nationality, Size of Firm, and Exploration for Petroleum in Western Canada, 1946–1954

This paper presents estimates of the relative importance of Canadian-controlled and non-resident-controlled firms in the exploration for and discovery of petroleum (including natural gas) in western Canada for the years 1946 to 1954, and offers a tentative explanation of the difference in performance of the two groups in terms of the relative sizes of the firms involved. This hypothesis tends to minimize the importance of non-resident control per se in explaining the dominant role of foreign-controlled firms in the early postwar expansion of this industry. If it provides a valid interpretation of this particularly important case it would lend limited support to a more general thesis, namely, that the apparently leading role played by non-resident-controlled firms in Canadian resource developments in the late 1940s and 1950s was due in the main, not to superior entrepreneurial talent or access to superior technological skills, but rather to readier access to massive capital resources. The study therefore has a twofold interest. It is primarily a study of the relationship between size and economic performance in one type of economic activity generally recognized as inherently highly risky. At the same time, however, it makes a minor contribution to the analysis of the role of non-resident-controlled firms in the expansion of the Canadian economy in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The Expansion of Bank Credit: An Alternative Approach

I. Credit expansion versus monetary expansion in the theory of monetary policy, 486. — II. The balance sheet identity, 489. — III. The credit control identity, 491. — IV. A static credit expansion multiplier, 492. — V. A priori magnitude of the multiplier, 494. — VI. Variability of the security-asset ratio, 496. — VII. A multiplier incorporating portfolio reactions, 496. — VIII. Tentative empirical verification, 498.