Rethinking the Welfare State: The prospects for ... - e-Library

Notes 261
73 Riddell, supra note 3, p. 71. It is hard to quantify the magnitude of this risk. In a setting of
integrated labour markets, inter-jurisdictional tax differentials always pose a risk to retention
of high-income earners. However, the mobility of taxpayers in response to tax differentials
should not be overstated given the range of connections that individuals have to their home
jurisdictions.
74 See, for example Reuven Brenner, The Future of Higher Education (Toronto, Centre for the
Study of State and Market, 1996).
75 See, for example, G.S.Becker, K.M.Murphy and R.Tamura, “Human capital, fertility and
economic growth,” Journal of Political Economy, 98(5) (1990); G. Psacharopoulos, “The
contribution of education to economic growth: international comparisons,” in J.W.Kendrick
(ed.) International Comparisons of Productivity and Causes of the Slowdown (Cambridge,
MA: Ballinger, 1984), p. 335.
76 Removing the means-test requirement is beneficial in two ways. First, students do not have
to rely on the support of their parents (or rebut a “presumption of support”) and can be selfsufficient
from the moment that they leave the family home. Second, there will be a gain in
administrative efficiency as resources will not have to be devoted to evaluating and
processing means-testing portions of applications.
77 Barr, supra note 7, p. 352.
78 For instance, graduate programs in North American universities have high average grades—
most graduate students have an “A” average upon graduation, whereas undergraduate
programs have much lower average grades—virtually always only a minority of students
graduate with “A” averages. Few people would take this as an indication that graduate
students learn less than undergraduate students. It is simply widely accepted that graduate
students should earn higher grades than undergraduates do and this expectation is built into
the evaluation process.
79 Barr, supra note 7, p. 352.
80 Ibid. Some monitoring of institutions will be done by society at large. Students will want to
attend strong institutions so that they have ready access to labour markets and the top
graduate and professional programmes. Employers will engage in monitoring so that they
hire personnel who are well educated and capable.
81 Auld, supra note 2, pp. 44, 52.
82 Ibid., p. 62. Institutions will likely compete especially vigorously in terms of their ability to
exploit technology and innovate in the utilization of their existing human capital.
83 It is unlikely, however, that job security would be reduced for the existing professoriate.
Labour demand for incumbent academics would likely increase significantly.
10
Labour market training
1 John P.Martin, “What works among active labour market policies: evidence from OECD
countries’ experiences,” Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Paper No. 35 (Paris:
OECD, 1998), p. 5.
2 Concern in North America is lower than it is elsewhere in the OECD at present as the
unemployment rate is near a 30-year low. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as
of June 2000 the unemployment rate in the US was 4.0 percent—US Bureau of Labor
Statistics, “The employment situation: June 2000” (July 7, 2000), available at:
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/History/empsit.07072000.news. Similarly, according to
Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate in Canada in June 2000 was 6.6 percent, also at a
30-year low. Statistics Canada, “The daily: labour force surveyjune 2000” (July 7, 2000),
available at: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/eppp-archive/100/201/301/daily/daily-