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112.More information
ABSTRACTStarting in 1988, the Bank of Canada has adopted price stability as its sole long-run objective. In this paper, we critically assess the policy actions effectively undertaken in light of this objective. Instead of using the so-called monetary conditions (interest rates and the exchange rate), we base our analysis on the movements of indicators closely related to true policy actions. Our results show a clear dichotomy between the long-run objective and the short-run policy actions. For example, while some policy analysts have identified a restrictive monetary stance in 1989, we detect rather expansionnist or at best neutral policy actions. We argue that the Bank of Canada's delay in meeting its long-run objective can be attributed to the discretionary framework under which its policy is conducted. This may undermine in the long run the Bank's credibility in its fight against inflation.
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118.More information
Political cinema is not a clearly identifiable film type, even if one can differentiate between three kinds of films: civil and educational, activist, and propaganda. Moreover, one must provide a real conceptual account of its realistic vocation in the broad sense. It is intrinsically political insofar as it entails “totalization”, that is to say dialectical production of a universal meaning emerging from the particular situations that are represented. This gap between particular and universal aspects shows the tension within this “reality” which does not consist merely of facts. It is always more, always ambiguous, haunted by multiple possibilities. This cinema is therefore liberating, since it provides the opportunity to struggle against fatality: the “given” reality can always be other than it “is”.
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Refuting any causal reduction, whether material or psychological, of the genesis and nature of human communities, Claude Lefort intends to offer a renewed understanding of what appears to him as a persistent « enigma of the social ». The political institution of the social, a moment of totalization through the establishment of power as a vector of collective unity, thus enters into tension with the original division that defines all societies, and refers to the mysterious and opaque nature of a reality that only appears downstream of symbolic mediation.
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The literature on the decision-making process s of governments in the field of trade has developped in recent years a number of models that stress different aspects of the subject. One aspect, however, that has rarely been examined closely is the exact role played by studies in this decision-making process. How serious are they, scientifically speaking? How are they considered by governments? What is their impacts? Such questions remain largely unanswered. In this paper, an effort is made to shed some light on this aspect of the decision-making process, the chosen field of enquiry being the Quebec Government's procurement policy. After considering various studies directly related to the implementation of this policy, the conclusion is reached that in general they were not very thorough and had a rather limited role in the final decision to implement the policy. More fundamentally, one is left with the impression that scientific research, as a tool for reaching decision in the field of international trade, is seen by governments with some degree of suspicion.