Canada: Life beyond the Looking Glass

John Helliwell

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2001, vol. 15, issue 1, 107-124

Abstract: Canada's population, a tenth that of the United States, is perched close to the U.S. northern border, tightly but asymmetrically tied to U.S. information networks. However, trade, capital and population mobility remains an order of magnitude tighter among provinces than between provinces and states. This separating effect of the national border is not primarily due to barriers, but to networks of contacts, trust and institutions that make it efficient to concentrate economic activity within national borders. This separation combines with quite different histories to explain why Canadian economic, social, education and health care policies remain distinct from U.S. policies, often closer to those in Northern Europe.

JEL-codes: E24 H20 I11 J61 O51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.15.1.107
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.15.1.107 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jecper:v:15:y:2001:i:1:p:107-124

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().