• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Gregory C. Mason

Research and teaching in public-policy

  • Publications
    • Agricultural Commentary
    • Articles (academic)
    • Chapters in Books
    • Current Research and Working Papers
    • Book Reviews
    • Technical Reports & Monographs
    • Workshops & Presentations
  • Guiding the Invisible Hand
  • Teaching
    • Resources for students
    • Economic Analytics Using Computer Methods
  • ISER
  • Economic Analytics
    • Methodology Notes
  • Mincome
  • PRA INC.

Guiding the Invisible Hand

Latest Commentary

The search for the truth never ends

Greg Mason
May 31, 2022

Winnipeg Free Press, May 30, 2022 Tributes to David Milgaard all highlight the strength of an individual who persevered through more that two decades of imprisonment for a murder he never committed. His mother Joyce Milgaard, Lloyd Axworthy, and the lawyer who believed his story, Hersch Wolch, deserve recognition for their efforts in righting a…

Continue Reading The search for the truth never ends

We need COVID measures we can trust

Greg Mason
April 14, 2022

Winnipeg Free Press, April 8, 2022 It is curious that the only recent indicator I have seen that COVID-19 still stalks us is that Kyle Connor and Nate Schmidt of the Winnipeg Jets were placed in virus protocol last week. I do not know what Canada’s self-styled virologists in chief (Stefanson, Kenney, Ford et al)…

Continue Reading We need COVID measures we can trust

Time to rethink vaccine strategy

Greg Mason
April 7, 2022

December 13, 2021 Omicron is on the prowl. While early indications are that it does not cause serious illness, it is very infectious. The current approach to enforcing vaccination mandates will not probably get us to 90-per-cent-plus of everyone over six being fully vaccinated, which is probably the level needed manage this disease. (Read more…)

Continue Reading Time to rethink vaccine strategy

Time to examine treaty annuities and the land

Greg Mason
April 7, 2022

Sheilla Jone, Wayne Helgason, and Gregory Mason Winnipeg Free Press, December 29, 2021 The November Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that the Crown violated Robinson Treaty terms by failing to increase annuity payments highlights the necessity of understanding the link between annuities and the land as a step toward reconciliation. Because without reconciliation, Canada risks…

Continue Reading Time to examine treaty annuities and the land

Online learning is here to stay

Greg Mason
April 7, 2022

Winnipeg Free Press, August 9, 2021 Fill in the blank. Virtual learning is to live learning as phone sex is to ______ sex. There you have it … a question from the 2021 Mensa test.(Read full Article)

Continue Reading Online learning is here to stay

This is one curve we shouldn’t have flattened

Greg Mason
April 7, 2022

Financial Post, February 9, 2022 I was fooling around with some GDP data the other day, as we economists are wont to do, and when I put it on a chart and drew a couple of trend lines, I was shocked by how setbacks we’ve suffered since 2000 seem to have become permanent scars on…

Continue Reading This is one curve we shouldn’t have flattened

Exaggerations of vaccine risk dangerous

Greg Mason
November 4, 2021

When I was 12, a friend offered to teach me a new card game. After explaining the basics, we started to play and I lost, as he mentioned another rule he had forgotten. I continued to lose as new and increasingly obscure rules surfaced. This is how I feel about COVID-19. New rules keep extending…

Continue Reading Exaggerations of vaccine risk dangerous

A Nobel Price for methods, not results

Greg Mason
November 4, 2021

This year’s Nobel laureates in economics received the award for coming up with creative methods for extracting causal insight from observational data. That may sound underwhelming but the three economists who were recognized have helped free us from the tyranny of randomized control trials (RCTs) as being the only route to understanding cause and effect.

Continue Reading A Nobel Price for methods, not results

Want a COVID booster? Maybe you should pay for it.

Greg Mason
November 4, 2021

Though disheartening, the emerging consensus that the COVID vaccines offer declining immunity is hardly surprising. Some vaccines, such as those for polio, do offer long-term immunity; in contrast, influenza shots have become an annual ritual in many households. The possibility that COVID vaccines would require an annual booster has always been on the table. With…

Continue Reading Want a COVID booster? Maybe you should pay for it.

Some problems with “evidence based” policy

Gregory Mason
February 16, 2021

One of the effects of COVID, is the ubiquity of evidence-based policy. Aside from coronavirus cranks, most accept that public health directives rest on science. However, evidence can be a cudgel when used to promote a specific policy and limit discussion under the assertion that “the science is settled.” This seems to have happened with…

Continue Reading Some problems with “evidence based” policy

Read More

Primary Sidebar

Latest Commentary

The search for the truth never ends

May 31, 2022 By Greg Mason

Winnipeg Free Press, May 30, 2022 Tributes to David Milgaard all highlight the strength of an individual who persevered through more that two decades of imprisonment for a murder he never committed. His mother Joyce Milgaard, Lloyd Axworthy, and the lawyer who believed his story, Hersch Wolch, deserve recognition for their efforts in righting a […]

We need COVID measures we can trust

April 14, 2022 By Greg Mason

Winnipeg Free Press, April 8, 2022 It is curious that the only recent indicator I have seen that COVID-19 still stalks us is that Kyle Connor and Nate Schmidt of the Winnipeg Jets were placed in virus protocol last week. I do not know what Canada’s self-styled virologists in chief (Stefanson, Kenney, Ford et al) […]

Time to rethink vaccine strategy

April 7, 2022 By Greg Mason

December 13, 2021 Omicron is on the prowl. While early indications are that it does not cause serious illness, it is very infectious. The current approach to enforcing vaccination mandates will not probably get us to 90-per-cent-plus of everyone over six being fully vaccinated, which is probably the level needed manage this disease. (Read more…)

Time to examine treaty annuities and the land

April 7, 2022 By Greg Mason

Sheilla Jone, Wayne Helgason, and Gregory Mason Winnipeg Free Press, December 29, 2021 The November Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that the Crown violated Robinson Treaty terms by failing to increase annuity payments highlights the necessity of understanding the link between annuities and the land as a step toward reconciliation. Because without reconciliation, Canada risks […]

Online learning is here to stay

April 7, 2022 By Greg Mason

Winnipeg Free Press, August 9, 2021 Fill in the blank. Virtual learning is to live learning as phone sex is to ______ sex. There you have it … a question from the 2021 Mensa test.(Read full Article)

Footer

About

Specializing in economic policy, the basic annual income, health economics, and Indigenous economics, Greg joined the Department of Economics at the University of Manitoba in 1974. Recently he has written on the economics of COVID, telemedicine, electronic health records, the modern annuity, and urban reserves.

Recent

  • The search for the truth never ends
  • We need COVID measures we can trust
  • Time to rethink vaccine strategy
  • Time to examine treaty annuities and the land
  • Online learning is here to stay

Copyright © 2022 Gregory C. Mason