Economic Development & Productivity
Events
December 2023 – January 2024 | Toronto, London, New York
The LRI recently held a series of three invitation-only roundtables in partnership with the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, Ivey Business School. The series focused on the challenges facing executives and policy makers vis-à-vis purpose, character and leadership in relation to ESG and the future of work, with the LRI contributing insights from the long-run experience.
A roundtable discussion on the unravelling of globalization, xenophobic resentment stoked by domestic inequality and rising costs of living, and national policy makers campaigning to “take back control” of borders. Political and economic experts from Canada and Ireland examined how to make sense of these developments, and how policy makers, businesses, and citizens could respond.
A day of discussion on the events and cycles underpinning risk with keynote guests General Stanley McChrystal, former Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Professor Juliette Kayyem, Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and leading international economist Dr. Nouriel Roubini of NYU’s Stern School of Business.
Articles
The LRI and The Economic History Society Annual Conference 2026
The Long Run Institute is delighted to sponsor doctoral students to attend the Economic History Society’s Centenary conference at the London School of Economics and Political Science from the 10th to the 12th of April 2026. See the program for some of the most fresh and innovative scholarship in economic and social history today.
Can ambition triumph over stagnation in Carney’s Ottawa?
Dr. Laurence B. Mussio writes in The Globe and Mail that Prime Minister Mark Carney faces a fundamental challenge: translating long-term economic vision into real projects within a federal system known for slow execution. Government machinery is structurally resistant to rapid change, and political actors are more skilled at short-term tactics than delivering complex projects. The author argues, however, that Canada has a deeper problem, a lack of institutional memory and execution capacity—what the author calls a deficit in “mnemonic capital.”
Canada’s money lives in exile. We’re rich abroad, but starved at home
Dr. Laurence B. Mussio, writing in The Globe and Mail, observes that Canada excels at creating capital and talent but loses both abroad. Of the $2.3 trillion held by major pension funds, only 25 percent is invested domestically. He argues that weak growth opportunities, regulatory uncertainty, and limited scale are widening Canada’s productivity gap by driving investors and skilled workers to the U.S.—but there are ways to reverse this trend so capital and talent choose to stay and grow the economy at home.