Robert D Cairns
Biographic Data
| ID | 3704152 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert D Cairns |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert D |
| FAMILY NAME | Cairns |
| SIGNATURE | CAIRNS R D |
| AFFILIATIONS | McGill University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3439-1412 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Growth and long-run sustainability
From any state of economic and environmental assets, the maximin value defines the highest level of utility that can be sustained forever. Along any development path, the maximin value evolves over time according to investment decisions. If the current level of utility is lower than this value, there is room for growth of both the utility level and the maximin value. For any resource allocation mechanism ( ram ) and economic dynamics, growth is l…
Value and income
Implementing carbon credits for forests based on green accounting
Two Proposals to Improve Price-Cap Regulation
homotheticity of preferences and for welfare or political weights. These considerations are important in reality, but either extension would require considerably more effort.
Reinforcing economic incentives for carbon credits for forests
Seeing the trees as a forest
White Gold
On Using Current Information to Value Hard-Rock Mineral Properties
We reformulate the “Hotelling valuation principle” to take into account the special production characteristics of hard-rock minerals. The data requirements of the revised model are still parsimonious, but the resultant valuations are some 40% below those produced by the Hotelling valuation principle. Our valuation equations are also “user-friendly,” allowing the valuer to specify price and cost expectations that need not comply with the Hotelling…
Ontario Hydro at the Millennium
Why do we price electricity the way we do? Canadian policy in the light of political‐economic theories of governmental behaviour
In the past few decades, crown electrical utilities have exhausted available economies of scale. At marginal‐cost prices, the utilities could recover costs and even a rent. Yet the available rents have not been collected through economically efficient pricing, but distributed to consumers through low prices. Who benefits from this policy? Second‐best prices are found subject to the constraint that profits are nil, and are compared to actual prici…
Debating Canada's Future
Natural Resources and Canadian Federalism
Canada has an unusual degree of decentralized authority over natural resources. A recurring challenge of resource policy has been to balance interrelated powers—of management and taxation provincial governments and of trade and taxation by the federal government—when there is divergence in the goals of the two governments. Constitutional amendment in 1982 and federal-provincial negotiations in the 1970s and 1980s confirmed the need for accommodat…
On the Political Economy of Social Democracy
Weldon's writings address many of the themes that have preoccupied Canadian political economists over the last thirty years: unemployment, wage controls, inflation, pensions, privatization and social ownership, economic planning, social policy, the means and extent of state intervention, and the rise of neo-conservatism. On the Political Economy of Social Democracy stresses Weldon's recognition of the vital connection between social democracy and…
The Softwood Lumber Agreement and Resource Politics
Contestability
Many claims have been made about the significance of the contribution of contestability theory to industrial organizat ion. This paper concludes that contestability theory leaves unanswere d questions about the identity of entrants and the source of their re sources. A modification to the theory is proposed. Rather than as a h indrance to potential entry, sunk costs are viewed as being of key si gnificance for the disciplining of oligopolists thr…
An Economic Assessment of the Resource Amendment
Dans l'amendement de 1982 a la loi constitutionnelle, la seule section qui affecte directement la division des pouvoirs entre les niveaux de gouvernements federaux et provinciaux est l'amendement des ressources naturelles, la section 92A. Apres avoir retrace l'histoire recente menant a cet amendement, cet article utilise la theorie economique pour evaluer les implications probables en ce qui concerne l'imposition des ressources naturelles, les po…
Rent Seeking, Deregulation and Regulatory Reform
Reform of Exhaustible Resource Taxation
A Reconsideration of Ontario Nickel Policy
Changing technologies of production and consumption have altered the structure of the nickel industry in the 1970s, from a dominant firm price leadership to an oligopoly with some difficulties in maintaining price discipline. This change in industry stucture has had an impact on the financial results of the Canadian firms Inco and Falconbridge. However, contrary to the tenor of recent reports published by the Ontario government, the Canadian nick…
The Constitution as Regulation
This paper presumes that a desirable (for reasons not necessarily economic) division of powers in a new constitution would assign control of trade and commerce to the federal, and control of natural resources to the provincial, levels of government. The economic literature on regulation is applied to determine what policy instruments would be best suited to achieving this division. It is concluded that, with few exceptions, price instruments shou…
Natural Resources and Canadian Federalism
Canada has an unusual degree of decentralized authority over natural resources. A recurring challenge of resource policy has been to balance interrelated powers—of management and taxation provincial governments and of trade and taxation by the federal government—when there is divergence in the goals of the two governments. Constitutional amendment in 1982 and federal-provincial negotiations in the 1970s and 1980s confirmed the need for accommodat…
The Constitution as Regulation
This paper presumes that a desirable (for reasons not necessarily economic) division of powers in a new constitution would assign control of trade and commerce to the federal, and control of natural resources to the provincial, levels of government. The economic literature on regulation is applied to determine what policy instruments would be best suited to achieving this division. It is concluded that, with few exceptions, price instruments shou…
White Gold
Reform of Exhaustible Resource Taxation
Why do we price electricity the way we do? Canadian policy in the light of political‐economic theories of governmental behaviour
In the past few decades, crown electrical utilities have exhausted available economies of scale. At marginal‐cost prices, the utilities could recover costs and even a rent. Yet the available rents have not been collected through economically efficient pricing, but distributed to consumers through low prices. Who benefits from this policy? Second‐best prices are found subject to the constraint that profits are nil, and are compared to actual prici…
Debating Canada's Future
Contestability
Many claims have been made about the significance of the contribution of contestability theory to industrial organizat ion. This paper concludes that contestability theory leaves unanswere d questions about the identity of entrants and the source of their re sources. A modification to the theory is proposed. Rather than as a h indrance to potential entry, sunk costs are viewed as being of key si gnificance for the disciplining of oligopolists thr…
Rent Seeking, Deregulation and Regulatory Reform
A Reconsideration of Ontario Nickel Policy
Changing technologies of production and consumption have altered the structure of the nickel industry in the 1970s, from a dominant firm price leadership to an oligopoly with some difficulties in maintaining price discipline. This change in industry stucture has had an impact on the financial results of the Canadian firms Inco and Falconbridge. However, contrary to the tenor of recent reports published by the Ontario government, the Canadian nick…
The Constitution as Regulation
This paper presumes that a desirable (for reasons not necessarily economic) division of powers in a new constitution would assign control of trade and commerce to the federal, and control of natural resources to the provincial, levels of government. The economic literature on regulation is applied to determine what policy instruments would be best suited to achieving this division. It is concluded that, with few exceptions, price instruments shou…
Rent Seeking, Deregulation and Regulatory Reform
Reform of Exhaustible Resource Taxation
An Economic Assessment of the Resource Amendment
Dans l'amendement de 1982 a la loi constitutionnelle, la seule section qui affecte directement la division des pouvoirs entre les niveaux de gouvernements federaux et provinciaux est l'amendement des ressources naturelles, la section 92A. Apres avoir retrace l'histoire recente menant a cet amendement, cet article utilise la theorie economique pour evaluer les implications probables en ce qui concerne l'imposition des ressources naturelles, les po…
The Softwood Lumber Agreement and Resource Politics
Contestability
Many claims have been made about the significance of the contribution of contestability theory to industrial organizat ion. This paper concludes that contestability theory leaves unanswere d questions about the identity of entrants and the source of their re sources. A modification to the theory is proposed. Rather than as a h indrance to potential entry, sunk costs are viewed as being of key si gnificance for the disciplining of oligopolists thr…
Debating Canada's Future
Natural Resources and Canadian Federalism
Canada has an unusual degree of decentralized authority over natural resources. A recurring challenge of resource policy has been to balance interrelated powers—of management and taxation provincial governments and of trade and taxation by the federal government—when there is divergence in the goals of the two governments. Constitutional amendment in 1982 and federal-provincial negotiations in the 1970s and 1980s confirmed the need for accommodat…
On the Political Economy of Social Democracy
Weldon's writings address many of the themes that have preoccupied Canadian political economists over the last thirty years: unemployment, wage controls, inflation, pensions, privatization and social ownership, economic planning, social policy, the means and extent of state intervention, and the rise of neo-conservatism. On the Political Economy of Social Democracy stresses Weldon's recognition of the vital connection between social democracy and…
Why do we price electricity the way we do? Canadian policy in the light of political‐economic theories of governmental behaviour
In the past few decades, crown electrical utilities have exhausted available economies of scale. At marginal‐cost prices, the utilities could recover costs and even a rent. Yet the available rents have not been collected through economically efficient pricing, but distributed to consumers through low prices. Who benefits from this policy? Second‐best prices are found subject to the constraint that profits are nil, and are compared to actual prici…
Ontario Hydro at the Millennium
On Using Current Information to Value Hard-Rock Mineral Properties
We reformulate the “Hotelling valuation principle” to take into account the special production characteristics of hard-rock minerals. The data requirements of the revised model are still parsimonious, but the resultant valuations are some 40% below those produced by the Hotelling valuation principle. Our valuation equations are also “user-friendly,” allowing the valuer to specify price and cost expectations that need not comply with the Hotelling…
White Gold
Seeing the trees as a forest
Two Proposals to Improve Price-Cap Regulation
homotheticity of preferences and for welfare or political weights. These considerations are important in reality, but either extension would require considerably more effort.
Reinforcing economic incentives for carbon credits for forests
Implementing carbon credits for forests based on green accounting
Value and income
Growth and long-run sustainability
From any state of economic and environmental assets, the maximin value defines the highest level of utility that can be sustained forever. Along any development path, the maximin value evolves over time according to investment decisions. If the current level of utility is lower than this value, there is room for growth of both the utility level and the maximin value. For any resource allocation mechanism ( ram ) and economic dynamics, growth is l…
Economics (15 works) · Political science (9 works) · Climate Change Policy and Economics (8 works) · Natural resource economics (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Economic and Environmental Valuation (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy (5 works)