Chris Abbott

My latest academic article - two years in the making - is finally out.

It explores why some ethnic minority groups can build alliances with majorities in divided societies - and others can’t. Here’s the gist in 8 posts 👇

As an important aside: Canada's renewed dependence on oil & gas since the 2000s commodity boom highlights a long-standing vulnerability that doesn't get enough attention - the "staples trap."

Anyways, shout out to @adamtooze.bsky.social & Cam for giving Canadian political economy some attention.

3) Stock market. Another reason oil & gas feels so central: the TSX (world's largest exchange by # of oil & gas issuers) is highly exposed to energy. Energy is the 2nd largest sector on the TSX after financials, with an adjusted market cap weighting of ~19%.

2) Trade. This figure shows the importance of oil and gas exports: while industrial & manufactured goods slipped into deeper trade deficits, oil and gas trade surpluses expanded dramatically, which has been responsible for sustaining Canada's overall trade balance.

1) Investment. If we decompose GDP growth since early 2000s, growth (&stagnation) in Canada is tied pretty closely to trends in fixed non-residential capital investment - more so than its peers. Breaking this down by industry, oil and gas stands out as the primary driver.

He notes the seemingly disproportionate political influence of oil & gas relative to its share of GDP - which he correctly identifies as small. But this misses other major indicators of its economic significance: 1) contribution to investment, 2) contribution to trade, 3) stock market influence.

Good @onesandtooze.bsky.social episode on Canada that flagged key aspects of Canada's political economy: importance of housing market, economic geography, continentalism, federalism. @adamtooze.bsky.social did make one mistake I've also made before regarding the oil and gas sector...

Trading with Bullies Economics for a Hard-Power World

open.substack.com/pub/siliconc...

Excellent piece by @lugaricano.bsky.social

Canadian productivity growth: Stuck in the oil sands We study the behaviour of Canadian Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth over the past 60 years. We find that the observed stagnation during the last 20 years is accounted for entirely by the oil se....

In "Canadian Productivity Growth: Stuck in the Oil Sands," the authors conduct a growth accounting decomposition of Cdn economy and find that productivity stagnation disappears when the oil sector is excluded, putting TFP growth on par with the US since 2001.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Finally. The obsession with internal trade barriers as the root of Canada’s economic woes—esp. productivity stagnation—is misleading.

Now, if everyone could shift their attention to some key research by Loertscher & @paupujolas.bsky.social in the Canadian Journal of Economics...

This is what happens when you ask me to help sanewash the Trump tariffs.

Easily the most sensible, if brief, take on Trudeau’s legacy amid a flood of uninformed opinions.

When partisanship and technocratic credibility collide: mass attitudes and central bank endorsements of fiscal policy in Canada and the USA Abstract. Developments over the past decade have made it increasingly difficult for central banks to achieve their macroeconomic objectives without the hel

New paper out at Socio-Economic Review with Kyle Hanniman, Elizabeth Goodyear Grant, Chris Abbbott and @jsmatthews99.bsky.social, presented long ago at @sasemeeting.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/ser/...
On mass attitudes and central bank endorsements of fiscal policy in Canada and the USA

A thread: