The goal of this paper is to present an analysis of the problems raised by the financing of the Quebec Pension Plan. In the first step, we shall try to identify the reasons underlying the financing problem. In the second step, we shall deal with the various financing methods and their impact on the level, the structure and the rate of increase of the contributions to the Plan. Finally, we shall conclude on the financing method which, in our view, should prevail.

A discussion of the main controversies over the tax treatment of the natural resource industries, of optimal taxation in relation to various policy objectives, and of the possibility of attaining these objectives through the main forms of taxation and royalties now in existence.

Vertical integration occurs when a transaction between two consecutive stages of production is carried through an internal organisation rather than the market. For most mineral products that are found in Canada, we can observe a fairly high degree of vertical integration from exploration up to refining. The purpose of this paper is to review the various approaches that have been used to study vertical integration in economic analysis and to evaluate their applicability to the Canadian mining sector. Thus far economists have approched vertical integration from three different stand points: first, the efficiency of interval organisation relative to the market in dealing with uncertainty under certain circumstances; second, the capacity to extend market power through vertical integration, and third, vertical integration can arise as an adjustment to some institutional constraints resulting mostly from government interventions. Although the efficiency and the monopolistic argument have contributed to vertical integration in the Canadian mining sector, government intervention in the form of special tax rules have also played a major role.

Samuelson's statement about Marx being a minor post-Ricardian from the viewpoint of pure economic theory leaves one perplexed. Is theoretical welfare economics a part of pure economic theory? This paper shows that theoretical welfare economics is the foundation of the theory of economic policy and intervention. Marx also sets forth a theory of intervention based on economic arguments. Therefore, Marx should be studied within the broader scope of theoretical welfare economics. Moreover, Marx's system contains not only analytical devices but also important value judgments and the theory of welfare economics aims to study the interrelations between value judgments and economic interventions. Methodological contradictions are shown in, and removed from, the theory of welfare economics in order to show the framework of Marx's entire system. The system as a whole is far beyond the realm of Ricardian economics, for it can be consistent and scientific although it contains value judgments. Samuelson's narrow approach and fuzziness in the methodological foundations of welfare economics hindered an appreciation of the full value of Marx's approach.

The following ill-tempered article provides a review of the foreign sector of CANDIDE; after briefly commenting the disagregation by products and services, the author examines the geographical disagregation of imports and exports into and from Canada between the U.S. and the Rest-of-the-World. He found that the proposed CANDIDE procedure is not after all that much meaningful and does not bring any additional information, while being dangerous as far as the forecasters using this model hope to get good results for imports from and exports to the Rest-of-the-World. Finally, the author gives some hints about what could have been alternatively done about this problem of geographical disagregation.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate into a general model of an open economy the study of optimal wedges on domestic and foreign transactions. While it has been customary in the literature to link the analysis of domestic taxes to the provision of public goods, the model presented here views the imposition of taxes and tariffs in the general context of internal and external monopolies. As such, the paper begins with the idea of a compromised optimality. This means essentially that a modern society, while maximizing the welfare of its members, is constrained by other internal objectives such as the fact that the State shares its monopoly power with several other economic entities (for instance employers' federations, trade-unions). Thus, the mere fact of levying taxes gives a State some monopoly power which, in a sense, is similar to that of a Cournot-type monopolist who "imposes" private taxes. On the other hand, given the possibility that a country with some monopoly power in international trade could improve its situation by imposing tariffs, the analysis lends itself to the study of tariffs and taxes in the broad context of optimal wedges. To allow for this characterization, the paper incorporates into the model of normalization. As a by-product of this, a) it establishes, in terms of generalized inverses of the Slutsky matrix, a link between domestic marginal relative revenues and foreign ones; b) it defines two concepts of optimal tariffs evaluated from f.o.b. prices and c.i.f. prices; c) it suggests some further extensions such as the analysis of transactions costs, the incorporation of market retaliations and cultural characteristics of goods.

In this paper one proposes a methodological framework for the study of information and decision structures in hospital management. With a particular reference to the control of nursing care demand and supply, various information and decision schemes are considered. The concepts of disease dynamics, state of the hospital system, information, strategy are explored. It is shown how recent theoretical results dealing with the economics of information or team decision theory may serve to formulate and analyse some fundamental resource allocation problems.

Final demand determines output in commercial non agricultural industries (Q). Employment is linked to Q by a distributed lag mechanism. In turn employment has an impact on other parts of model. In particular employment appears as a determinant of the labour supply and of the distribution of income. The latter is closely related to the structure of final demand. Hence, employment is a key-variable when one uses the model to make a forecasting exercise. Some of the principles behind the specification and estimation of the model are discussed. For example, for forecasting purposes one must limit the size of the model. Although the specification of each equation is derived from the body of accepted macro-economic theory, the limited size of the model and the necessity to obtain data at the time a forecast is made impose some constraint on the specification of the equations. In the short run, actual employment is not immediately adjusted to the level of desired employment, i.e., employment level that could minimize production costs. The quarterly changes in employment are then made proportional to the gap between desired and actual employment. Desired employment is obtained by using an inverse production function. However, the adjustment mechanism is not stable over the cycle. Various proxy variables could be used to unbody that phenomenon into the equation. The ratio of actual to potential output and the relative change in the gap between actual and potential output are combined to make an indicator of the degree of slackness or tension in the economy over the cycle. This indicator is introduced into the final specification of the equation. The equation estimated is consistent with economic theory and gives excellent forecasting results. However the severe recession of 1974 was accompanied by an exceptional drop in productivity that could be entirely captured by the equation and some adjustments were needed to forecast employment for that particular period.

In this article we describe preliminary estimates of a model of the Canadian financial system. At the present time, the model explains the behaviour of the authorities, the chartered banks, the public, and the trust and mortgage loan companies. The variables explained include monetary aggregates, several interest rates, and the major assets of the chartered banks and of the trust and mortgage loan companies. The model differs from existing Canadian models in that we use monthly data rather than quarterly or annual data. We think the shorter observation period permits the econometric estimates to capture the dynamic adjustment processes more accurately. In particular, the mean lags implied by our equations tend to be considerably shorter than those in existing models. Another difference with conventional models is the larger influence given to asset and liability management of the chartered banks in the determination of short-term interest rates. The model is intended primarily for forecasting, and results are presented which indicate its usefulness in that regard.

This paper begins by discussing what ought to be the approach to the problem of forecasting in the medium term. The author emphasizes the advantages of a very detailed breakdown of sectors. He then considers certain econometric problems which arise when forecasting consumption in the medium term. He contrasts the formulation of the consumer sector in CANDIDE with that of two other types of model and compares the results of each. The author proposes an alternative way of treating consumption in CANDIDE which would take into account different categories of households. Finally, he discusses how to resolve problems of organization of the data, of modelling, and of estimation which may arise when using such an approach.