Reuven Brenner

Uncovering the costs and benefits of sports gambling

webfull — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 19:15:47 +0000

In a piece for The Wall Street Journal, Professor Reuven Brenner makes the case for legalized sports gambling – an activity that has only recently been legalized in the US through a Supreme Court ruling.

“As in sports, so in high culture – prohibitions, bad regulations and badly imposed taxes destroy businesses and have long-term unintended consequences,” explains Brenner.

Professor Brenner on anti-Semitism

webfull — Fri, 11 May 2018 15:55:23 +0000

In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Desautels Professor Reuven Brenner traces the early manifestations of anti-Semitism into the present, suggesting that the constant in all of this is the Jewish people’s opposition to dominant ideologies of a given time.

Professor Brenner on how Asian countries can overcome democratic deficits

webfull — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 21:13:49 +0000

In a piece for Asia Times, Professor Reuven Brenner points to history and other geographic contexts to demonstrate how Asian countries, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, can redress democratic deviances.

Professor Brenner invited to prestigious panel

webfull — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 16:41:34 +0000

Professor Reuven Brenner was invited to present on a panel that discussed venture capital in Quebec’s biotech and life sciences industry. The high-profile event was attended by Quebec Ministers Mr. Gaétan Barrette and Ms. Dominique Anglade, while the discussion was moderated in part by Mr. Pierre-Marc Johnson, former Premier of Quebec.

The education reformation

webfull — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 20:35:48 +0000

In a piece for American Affairs, Professor Reuven Brenner takes a pulse of contemporary U.S. education and outlines some of the key challenges in this area, including skewed high school graduation rates and the lack of rigorous training to develop skills and discipline.

As a solution, Prof. Brenner proposes an accelerated education program that is complemented by new institutions to better prepare students for their lives and careers.

Technological advancement means the rethinking of language

webfull — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 16:24:32 +0000

As society continues to embrace technological advancement, we tend to overlook how the words that our ancestors used have lost their meaning. In an article for Asia Times, Desautels professor Reuven Brenner explores what happens when the words used for the physical realm are applied to a digitized society, and how the fit is not always a natural one. Prof. Brenner illustrates his point by referring to the legal system’s struggles with interpreting Google’s business practices.

Is bitcoin the new gold?

webfull — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 17:32:14 +0000

Bitcoin has been the target of much speculation among financial circles with some experts alleging that it has the potential to become comparable to gold, a currency legitimized through social convention.

In a piece for Asia Times, Desautels professor Reuven Brenner explores what it takes for a new monetary yardstick to emerge, and argues that, historically, social convention must be combined with scarcity.

Inflation or recession? The US Fed tries to untangle a financial mystery

webfull — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 15:13:26 +0000

A Weekly Standard op-ed examines the way the Fed is trying to tame a $4-trillion quantitative easing problem in case another recession hits.

The piece quotes Desautels professor Reuven Brenner’s withering criticism of current policies in American Affairs (in which he likens them more to astrology than science) but allows that the Fed is trying to make sense of a vastly confusing set of circumstances: low unemployment should be pushing wages and inflation upward, but it’s not happening.

Taking a Gamble on Illegal Betting

webfull — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 22:04:51 +0000

As the English Premier League season starts, punters play the odds despite the country's ban on wagers - and millions are taking the risk.

Financial Options for a Country Waiting for a Divorce

webfull — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:11:37 +0000

Authors: Reuven Brenner

Publication: La Presse, IRRP

Excerpt:

In its first paragraph, the draft bill of the Quebec government, tabled on December 7, 1994 in the National Assembly, declares that "Quebec is a sovereign country."

In the next paragraphs the bill indicates ways in which constitutional, territorial and legal issues, as well as those linked with currency and international alliances would be settled in case of separation. Paragraph 15 states:

Australia’s top court decides in favor of trade detention centers

webfull — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 18:19:01 +0000

On a flight back from Moscow in 1992, following meetings with parliament members and the late Mr. Yegor Gaidar, then finance minister, I wrote up the tongue-in-cheek conversation I had with them at the time, when they all complained about Russia having only its natural resources to sell. Please bear with me how this episode is linked to Australian highest court recent decision to export “asylum seekers” to detention centers in Nauru, a minuscule, isolated island with few thousand inhabitants in the midst of the Pacific.

Macroeconomics, accountability and the 2008 financial crisis

webfull — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 17:02:02 +0000

In a recent essay for the inaugural issue of American Affairs, Desautels Faculty of Management professor Reuven Brenner writes that it is time to drop the macroeconomic myths that have been damaging us for decades, and put accountability back at the centre of our economy. Against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis, he examines the practices and theories that took hold in the 1930s, and how they have affected everything from democracy to the basic assumptions we make about economics.

Episode 11 with Reuven Brenner - The Force of Finance

webfull — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:13:05 +0000

Reuven Brenner holds the REPAP Chair in Economics at ��ϲ�� University’s Faculty of Management. He has written numerous books, including The Force of Finance: Triumph of the Capital Markets (2002).

Part 11 of a video series produced by the Montreal Economic Institute: www.iedm.org.

Watch full interview: Frontier Centre for Public Policy

A Europe losing cohesion

webfull — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 18:30:37 +0000

Ever since France's defeat in 1870-1 in the Franco-Prussian war, when military strength was identified with numerical superiority, demography, language and culture have become permanent parts of, and, at times, the focus of French politics.

Canadian elections: Why did inexperience triumph?

webfull — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 15:33:02 +0000

Article written by Professor Reuven Brenner

As in the United States, Canadians voted for “Hope and Change” on Oct. 19, 2015.

These are exactly the words Justin Trudeau, the 43-years old elected head of the Liberal party, repeatedly used in his victory speech in both English and French. I could not avoid wondering if Mr. Trudeau’s team used the same public relations firm that Mr. Obama used in his first campaign, or if he just borrowed the slogans.