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Canada's Economic Prospects: A Survey of Ten Industries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Jesse W. Markham
Jesse W. Markham*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

Historians will probably mark the 1950's as the period in which the economists' two-decade preoccupation with stability gave way to a revival of their long-run and continuing preoccupation with economic growth. If they do, they will be under obligation to explain the coincidence of economists' renewed interest in growth and the economic affluence attained by those societies which produced most of them. Why should economists of the Western world assign primacy to growth and at the same time voice concern that most of their fellow citizens already earn larger incomes than they can dispose of intelligently? An obvious explanation, but not necessarily a full explanation, is that in the mid-twentieth century economists have become very much aware of the political interdependency of nations. The growing economic strength of the Soviet Union and Communist China, and the poverty and illiteracy of new African and Asian nations, not the low income of Mississippi dirt farmers, Belgian coal miners, and Sicilian fruit pickers, spark the interest of Western economists in economic growth. Growth rates otherwise sufficient to produce consumer affluence in Western countries may not in prevailing political circumstances assure this affluence and adequate defence, supremacy in space technology, and large aid programmes to underdeveloped countries.

Type
Review Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , May 1961 , pp. 261 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1961

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References

1 It may be noted in passing that as late as March, 1960, Mr. Donald Fleming, Canadian Minister of Finance, predicted an increase of 6 per cent for 1960. New York Times Hemisphere Economic Review, 01 11, 1961, 492.Google Scholar

2 Canadian Business Service Limited, The Electronics Industry in Canada (Ottawa, 1956)Google Scholar; Woods, J. D. & Gordon Limited, The Canadian Agricultural Machinery Industry (Ottawa, 1956)Google Scholar; Barber, Clarence L., The Canadian Electrical Manufacturing Industry (Ottawa, 1956)Google Scholar; The Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, The Canadian Automotive Industry (Ottawa, 1956)Google Scholar; Davis, John, The Canadian Chemical Industry (Ottawa, 1957)Google Scholar; Dr.Morgan, Lucy, The Canadian Primary Iron and Steel Industry (Ottawa, 1956)Google Scholar; Urwick, Carrie Limited, The Canadian Industrial Machinery Industry (Ottawa, 1956)Google Scholar; National Industrial Conference Board (Canadian Office), The Canadian Primary Textiles Industry (Ottawa, 1956)Google Scholar; The Royal Bank of Canada, The Canadian Construction Industry (Ottawa, 1957)Google Scholar; Urwick, Carrie Limited, The Nova Scotia Coal Industry (Ottawa, 1957).Google Scholar

3 For recent assessments of the prospects for the entire Canadian economy, see Caves, Richard E. and Holton, Richard H., The Canadian Economy: Prospect and Retrospect, Harvard Economic Studies CXII (Cambridge, Mass., 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects (Ottawa, 1958).Google Scholar

4 All United States data adapted from The Proportion of the Shipments (or Employees) of Each Industry, or the Shipments of Each Group of Products, Accounted for by the Largest Companies as Reported in the 1954 Census of Manufactures, US Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (Washington, 1957).Google Scholar

5 International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics, X, no. 12, 12, 1957, 256.Google Scholar

6 The reviewer prefers to refrain from engaging in lengthy analysis of these advantages and disadvantages to Canada. For a lucid and comprehensive treatment of the subject see Viner, Jacob, “The Gordon Commission Report,” Queen's Quarterly, LXIV, no. 3, Autumn, 1957, 313–17.Google Scholar

7 Kent, Tom, Inside the Gordon Report, Winnipeg Free Press Pamphlet no. 57 (06, 1958), 9–10.Google Scholar

8 Final Report of the Royal Commission, 396–8.