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Paul Boothe was appointed Professor and Director of the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management at the Ivey Business School, Western University in September 2012. His career has included university research and teaching, acting as an independent consultant to Canadian and international organizations, and serving at the deputy minister level in provincial and federal governments.
Dr. Boothe was trained in economics at Western (Hons BA) and UBC (PhD). He was appointed to the faculty of the University of Alberta from 1984 to 2007. He has authored more than 70 publications in the areas of macroeconomics, international finance, debt management and public finance.
Dr. Boothe's public sector career includes serving as the Deputy Minister of Finance and Secretary to Treasury Board for Saskatchewan (1999-2001), Associate Deputy Minister of Finance and G7 Deputy for Canada (2004-2005), Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Industry (2007-2010) and Deputy Minister of the Environment (2010-2012).
Abstract: This paper looks at the design of intergovernmental transfers in two mature federations, Australia and Canada, in an effort to determine empirically how well transfers in these countries mitigate shocks to regional government revenues. Two general results emerge. First, the average impact of federal transfers in Australia and Canada is not generally stabilizing for regional government revenues. Second, using the methodology of von Hagen and Hepp, we found little evidence of a marginal stabilizing impact of federal transfers on Australian state revenues. For Canada, we found evidence of somewhat larger impacts.
Abstract: Infants today lose maternal measles antibody sooner than in the past. This is related to demographic changes in maternal immunization. Data for rates of decay of maternal antibody and seroconversion after measles vaccination for infants born to naturally immune (Group 1) or vaccinated (Group 2) mothers have been used to evaluate two vaccination schedules: Regime 1, measlesmumpsrubella (MMR) at 1 year of age and Regime 2, monovalent measles at 6 months followed by MMR at 15 months of age. Regime 2 costs less because MMR can be administered at 15 months with the last pentavalent booster. Months of protection1000 children aged 015 months (child-months of protection) were estimated for infant populations ranging from 0 to 100% Group 1 for Regimes 1 and 2. Regime 1 provides more child-months of protection only for 100% Group 1 populations. For the study population Regime 2 provided at least 17% more child-months of protection than Regime 1. Regime 2 provides increased medical and financial benefits in proportion to the number of Group 2 infants in the population and thus is ever more advantageous for today's increasingly vaccinated populations.
Abstract: Objective: To investigate cost effectiveness of administration of flumazenil to patients presenting with suspected acute drug overdose.brbrDesign: Double-blind, prospective, placebo-controlled randomized study.brbrSetting: University teaching hospital.brbrPatients: Forty-three adults presenting with suspected drug overdose and having a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 13. Patients with known benzodiazepinetricyclic ingestion were excluded.brbrInterventions: Intravenous administration of flumazenil (up to 2 mg) or placebo.brbrMeasurements and Main Results: Individual patient costs were assessed and data aggregated for each treatment group. Major diagnostic and therapeutic interventions were recorded and between group comparisons performed. Clinical response to study drug administration was assessed by obtaining pre- and post-drug GCS scores and observation of the patient for at least 180 mins for signs of resedation.brbrAggregate cost or number of major diagnostic and therapeutic interventions were not different between groups.Patients randomized to the flumazenil group showed a marked increase in GCS score (7.4 to 11.8) compared with those in the placebo group (8.2 to 8.6).brbrConclusion: Use of flumazenil in intentional drug overdose of unknown etiology is not cost effective.
Abstract: This study compared the costs of an inpatient elective surgical admission process with an outpatient based same day admission programme in patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The effect of this process change on annual surgical volume and case flow (number of procedures performed per surgical bed) in the year before the initiation of same-day method (198990) and subsequent to the widespread use of the process (199293), was abo assessed. Costs incurred by 53 patients who underwent preoperative anaesthetic and surgical assessment as outpatients and were admitted as an outpatient on the day of surgery (SD Group) were compared with those incurred by 11 patients who entered hospital on the day before surgery and underwent anaesthetic and other assessments as inpatients (IP Group). Nursing, radiology, laboratory, operating room, rehabilitation and clinic costs were obtained for each patient. The remaining costs were not amenable to individual attribution and were assigned to each group as a percentage of the allocated costs. The cost per case in the SD Group was 360 less than in the IP Group, reflecting decreased nursing costs incurred by the SD Group. Between the period 198990 and 199293, the number of surgical beds declined 15.7% however, surgical volume decreased by only 5.4%. Total case flow improved by 12.2%, that for elective and non-elective surgery increasing by 14.1% and 9.5%, respectively. Elective surgery, where same day admission was used, showed the greatest improvement in case flow. We conclude that a same day admission process reduces cost and serves to enhance hospital productivity.
Boothe, P. M.; Reid, B. G., 1992, "Debt Management Objectives in a Small Open Economy", Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, February 24(1): 43 - 60.
Abstract: In this paper we consider both the transitional and long-run implications of one aspect of changing Canada's constitutional structure -- dividing the federal debt. We argue that it may be very difficult to agree on a division formula and particular regions may have strong incentives to frustrate agreement. The divided debt may carry substantial risk premiums. Designing institutions to effect the division will require an unprecedented degree of co-operation and risk sharing among the regions. Finally, post-division forces may engender large-scale migrations of labour and capital from some regions.
Abstract: In this paper we use a simple but powerful technique to examine two models of the term structure for an open economy. Cointegration tests using two data sets for Canada and the United States support the open economy model based on uncovered interest parity as an explanation for the Canadian term structure of interest rates. Support for the generalized-present-value model is, at best, mixed. This lack of support may be attributable to low test power due to our smaller sample or to differences in the periods examined.
Abstract: In this paper we test the validity of the Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis by examining the relationship between the term structure of asset returns and macroeconomic policy variables. Our study extends the work of Plosser (1982, 1987) to the Canadian case, adapting his analysis to the small open economy. The empirical results we obtain are consistent with the debt-neutrality proposition of the Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis.
Abstract: In this paper the authors investigate the importance for the monetary model of exchange rate determination of Frankel (1979) of allowing unrestricted dynamics and of accounting for shifts in the demand for money due to financial innovation. Based on estimation and simulation results for the Canada-U.S. bilateral exchange rate over the 1970-85 period, the authors find strong evidence in favour of a generalized approach to dynamic specification but find that the shift adjustment of official money supply data has only minor implications for the empirical results. Moreover, neither modification is sufficient to generate a monetary model that is well supported by the data.
Abstract: This paper studies the determination of exchange market transaction costs. Using a large data set including seven currencies, it provides empirical support for the theoretical prediction of a positive relationship between the level of uncertainty regarding future prices and current transaction costs. In contrast to most previous work, it considers explicitly the problem of omitted transactions volume, showing that while estimators are less efficient and potentially inconsistent in the absence of the unavailable variable, the direction of potential coefficient bias is such that hypothesis tests regarding the importance of uncertainty are rendered more conservative.
Abstract: The abundant evidence that changes in exchange rates have distributions with fatter tails than the normal distribution has led researchers to consider non-normal distributions, including the Student, the stable Paretian and mixtures of distributions. This paper compares the empirical fits of three non-normal candidates and the normal distribution for daily changes in the logarithms of exchange rates, using maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters and chi-square goodness-of-fit tests. The Student and mixture of two normals provide the best fits, but there is evidence that the distribution parameters may vary over time.
Boothe, P. M.; Glassman, D., 1987, "Off the Mark: Lessons for Exchange Rate Modelling", Oxford Economic Papers, September 39: 443 - 457.
Abstract: In this paper we compare the rankings of alternative exchange rate forecasting models using two different evaluation criteria: forecast accuracy and profitability in forward market speculation. Either or both of these criteria may be useful to the practitioner depending on the forecasting application. We use both time-series and static and dynamic structural models to construct forecasts for the Canadian dollarU.S. dollar and German markU.S. dollar exchange rates over the period 1976 :121984: 9. Our results confirm earlier findings that simple time-series models such as the random walk rank highest in forecast accuracy. The random walk also ranks high in terms of profitability for the German mark, but for the Canadian dollar the profitability rankings are quite different than the accuracy results. For both currencies we find that some models are very profitable in forward speculation, which is evidence against the speculative efficiency hypothesis but may be consistent with the existence of risk premia in foreign exchange markets.
Abstract: We develop a new specification test which can easily be applied to regression models that have been estimated by generalized least squares. The test is a variant of the F-test. It is derived for the general case, and also, in more detail, for the commonly encountered case of models with AR(I) errors. Two empirical examples are presented, one of them involving a well-known model of exchange rate determination.
Abstract: The market value and maturity structure of outstanding Government of Canada debt are calculated at monthly frequency for the 1967 to 1983 period. The data are disaggregated into general public, chartered bank, and government holdings. The time-series behaviour of market-value and par-value measures are examined to determine whether par value is a reasonable approximation for market value. Market-value data are also used to construct an alternative measure of the deficit flow which is compared with conventional measures of the deficit.
