ABSTRACT
According to Canadian taxfiler data, over the last thirty years there has been a surge in the income shares of the top 1%, top 0.1% and top 0.01% of income recipients, even with longitudinal smoothing by individual using three- or five-year moving averages. Top shares fell in 2008 and 2009, but only by a fraction of the overall surge. Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario have much more pronounced surges than other provinces. Part of the Canadian surge is likely attributable to U.S. factors, but a comprehensive explanation remains elusive. Even so, I draw implications for policies that might achieve some support from across the political spectrum, including the elimination of tax preferences that favour those with high incomes, the promotion of shareholder democracy and, to maintain Canada's relatively high intergenerational mobility, continued wide accessibility to healthcare and education.
ABSTRACT
Between 1970 and 1986, all Canadian provinces introduced some version of a prescription drug subsidy for those aged 65 years or over and since 1986, all the provinces have increased copayments or deductibles to some degree. Employing a first-order approximation to the welfare gains from a subsidy, we find evidence that these subsidies have been less redistributive than an absolute per household cash transfer but slightly more redistributive than a transfer that would increase each household's income by the same percentage. Such evidence may have relevance for predicting the redistributive effects of a potential national prescription drug plan for seniors in the US.