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Federal revenue sharing will have much more effect on state-local finances than nationwide revenue and spending aggregates might suggest, because of the impor tance of changes at the margin and the differing relative benefits of various areas and jurisdictions. It will be a long time before data needed for sophisticated efforts to measure the program's impact can be applied. The real fiscal effects undoubtedly differ from those that might be inferred from official reports about the use of shared revenue, which take no account of other, resulting changes in the budgets of recipient governments. Summary trend data suggest that the program has increased state-local spending for payrolls and construction, but the magnitude and composition of these developments cannot yet be closely gauged. Fiscal effects for various areas and jurisdictions will differ markedly due to the diversity of their relative gains, which range consid erably from state to state and much more so at the local level. The program apparently will, to a very modest degree, improve the competitive fiscal position of metropolitan central cities relative to their suburbs. Otherwise, however, the fund distribution seems likely to permit relatively more easing of local taxes or more increases in local government spending in thinly populated areas, where levels of taxation and financing are comparatively low, than in urbanized higher-cost areas.

Les achats de titres effectués par la Banque du Canada dans le cadre de l'assouplissement quantitatif reviennent à échanger une dépense à taux d'intérêt fixe contre un taux variable payé sur certains éléments du passif de la Banque du Canada. Ils impliquent également que le gouvernement du Canada demeure responsable des pertes potentielles sur ces actifs. La part de la dette publique fédérale financée sur le marché monétaire s'en trouve fortement accrue, ce qui expose le gouvernement du Canada à un risque de taux d'intérêt plus élevé que celui indiqué dans les documents budgétaires et qui s'est traduit par des pertes importantes à ce jour. La sortie de l'assouplissement quantitatif dans un contexte de lutte contre l'inflation pose des défis importants pour la politique monétaire et laisse entrevoir une situation budgétaire difficile.

In a recent report from the Fraser Institute, Grady and Grubel (2015) concluded that, because of the low taxes they pay and the government services they receive, the fiscal burden of recent immigrants to Canada was significant ($5,329 per immigrant in 2010). The present study, however, shows that the fiscal burden is significant only in the case of refugees and sponsored immigrants. By contrast, economic immigrants actually pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. This is an important finding because economic immigrants are selected primarily on economic grounds, whereas refugees and sponsored immigrants are accepted primarily on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.