The post-recent period
Beginning with Laband (1985) and Black with Walker (1988), if not before, the profession in Canada took account of itself as an institution: the number and character of its members, the number and quality of its publications, the leading Departments of Economics.
The Canadian Economics Association’s twenty-fifth anniversary summation of Economics in Canada focused attention on the institutional development of the profession (Canadian Journal of Economics, 1993, vol.26, 1-76). Lucas (1995), Davies, Kocher and Sutter (2008), and Simpson and Emery (2012) kept a running score into the twenty-first century. These works, too, from a different point of view, say something about the nature of economics in Canada.Concern with methodology continued beyond the twentieth century. Though not in the spirit of Johnson, Lawrence Boland (2003) continued his critique of neoclassical economics. Arthur Robson (2007) took a very different route to defend the principles of neoclassical economics, presumably against the emerging behavioralists. Tom Courchene can be taken to represent the legions who labored in the service of so-called objective research institutes. His publications, well into the twenty-first century, have been as numberless as have been the publications of his counterparts in other research institutes. Courchene began as something of a monetarist, but, like his ilk, he has not taken up a single-minded pursuit of economic theory. Rather he has served in the trench war over current policy. Perhaps that is “capital using” rather than “capital building” as Johnson said, but, there is something Johnsonian, even Innisian, in a focus on conditions on the ground rather than on abstractions.
In the last years of the twentieth century, feminist economics arrived in Canada (Wooley, 1993; Phipps, 1999). It was openly nihilistic, insisting on the importance of institutions and the fluidity of preferences.
Like Johnsonian nihilism, feminist economics, as it appeared in Canada, qualified rather than rejected qualitative theory. Frances Wooley and Shelley Phipps continued their critique of Gary Becker’s economics of the family well into the twenty-first century.In the last two decades of the twentieth century, New Institutionalism, behavioral economics, and game theory did not go unnoticed in public sector economics (Boadway, 1997), in industrial organization (Green, 1987), and in international trade theory (Harris, 1995). In a species of nihilistic economics, Timothy Hazeldine (1990) tied the new departures together. Both behavioral economics and game theory began as qualifications of qualitative theory. The same could be said of the New Institutionalism when it was still in the hands of Ronald Coase. New departures continued into the twenty-first century. Richard Harris turned his attention to elements of happiness economics in a series of first decade reports for the Canadian Institute for Living Standards. John Helliwell also turned to happiness economics. Robin Boadway (2012) continued producing in the general field of public sector economics. New departures notwithstanding, international trade and public finance were still fields in which contributions to the discipline in general were being made. But this may overstate the distinctive character of economics in Canada. Clearly, much of this qualification of neoclassical economics is to be found elsewhere in the Euro-American information environment.
Before concluding it would be a mistake not to mention two internationally successful Canadian historians of economic thought, Robert Dimand and Samuel Hollander, who also continued their seemingly endless contributions to the discipline into the twenty-first century.
The first decade of the twenty-first century saw innumerable quantitative studies in the details of every field of economics, but no new overall hypothesis was forthcoming. Economists in Quebec were still interested in the economic possibilities of a politically separate state for francophones.
In the optimism surrounding telematics in the late twentieth century, the future held promise (Hamel and Belanger, 1992). In the Great Recession, however, the promise of support for independence was unfulfilled (Joanis and Godbout, 2009). Given the nation's continued reliance on primary product exports, particularly petroleum products, the Staple Theory had not lost its explanatory value. Richard Lipsey's Economic Transformations looked like the beginning of a new paradigm in the general discipline, but it was received with the enthusiasm with which the 1820s received John Rea's New Principles.Economics in Canada is a mature part of economics in the Euro-American information environment. Its nihilism is less a distinctive characteristic in the twenty-first century. No leading figure with the stature of Rea, Innis, Angers, or Johnson has appeared, but no reincarnation of Marshall, Veblen, Keynes, or even Friedman has yet analyzed the Great Recession. There is no new overarching theory to be foiled by the conditions of a small, open, regionalized economy.