The sacred landscape of imperial China was dotted with Buddhist monasteries, Daoist temples, shrines to local deities, and the altars of the mandarinate. Prominent among the official shrines were the temples in every capital throughout the empire devotd to the veneration of Confucius. Twice a year members of the educated elite and officials in each area gathered to offer sacrifices to Confucius, his disciples and the major scholars of the Confucian tradition.

When will the fiscal dividend appear and what is its likely magnitude? Should deficit targets be replaced by debt targets or debt/GDP targets? Should the fiscal dividend focus on tax cuts and increases in program expenditures? Should the Canadian government shift away from an annual deficit target to budget balance over the cycle to allow automatic stabilizers to play their important buffering role? And if so, what level of contingency reserve is necessary to ensure that cyclical budget balance can be met? Addressing these and other important questions, Fiscal Targets and Economic Growth...

Eighteen papers, presented by Beach (economics, Queen's U., Canada) and Wilson (emeritus, economics, U. of Toronto, Canada), collectively analyze economic, political, institutional and social aspects of Canada's 2003 federal budget. Papers assess the quantitative economic effects of the budget, explore accounting and taxation aspects, look at the f

The 2006 federal budget was the first for a new Conservative minority government led by a prime minister from the west. As a platform for implementing distinctive election promises, the 2006 budget offered ample opportunity for rethinking fiscal priorities in Canada, such as cutting the GST, addressing fiscal imbalance with the provinces, and finding a different approach to childcare and child benefits. The papers in this volume examine the political and economic context informing the 2006 budget as well as lessons from recent U.S. tax policy debates and a quantitative evaluation of the...