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David Seymour

David Seymour directed the Frontier Centre’s Saskatchewan office from 2007 to 2011. He holds degrees in Electrical Engineering and Philosophy from the University of Auckland, where he also tutored Economics. After working as an engineer in New Zealand, he applied his passion for sound policy analysis to policy issues on the Prairies. In four years working for the Frontier Centre, David carried out extensive media work, presenting policy analysis through local and national television, newspapers, and radio. His policy columns were published in newspapers in every province as well as the Globe and Mail and the National Post. David produced policy research papers on telecommunications privatization, education, environmental policy, fiscal policy, poverty, and taxi deregulation. However, his major project with the Frontier Centre was the annual Local Government Performance Index (LGPI) which compiled financial performance statistics across all major Canadian cities. David also produced an 18 part video series based on Henry Hazlitt’s classic book Economics in One Lesson and wrote the book “Birth of a Boom – Saskatchewan’s Dawning Golden Age” in 2011.

Research by David Seymour

Farmer Knows the Land

Apr 7, 2011 | , ,

A Saskatchewan Farmer writes about the role of wetlands on sask farm land over the last century, as a sink and a source of water in wet and dry years. With the advent of larger equipment, farmers of that time did a more complete job of land development. When you read...

Featured News

Liquor Privatisation and Cost/Convenience Trade Offs

Feb 12, 2011 | , ,

Several weeks ago the Saskatoon Star Phoenix ran a piece from a U of S professor named Colin Boyd.

Boyd claims that Alberta liquor is NOT cheaper than Saskatchewan liquor. We point out that this 2009 Frontier study found that it is.

Whoever is right about that, there is a more important point that Boyd misses in his article. The price at the checkout is not the full cost of the item. The full cost is the cost of getting the item to your house. Part of this cost is paid at the checkout, and part of it is paid by the customer in the course of getting to the store and then home again. These costs are not only time and travel costs, but also stress and inconvenience. In his article, Boyd implies that having multiple stores in what seems to be a small area is an unnecessary duplication that increases the cost of liquor. Therefore, he concludes, Saskatchewan has the superior system.

Calgary’s Taxis: With the Right Expectations, Everybody can be Happy: Calgary’s taxi system is out of step with trends in the wider world beyond it.

Feb 11, 2011 | , ,

Any honest assessment of Calgary’s taxi market would have asked why a tiny minority of plate holders are able to earn monopoly rents of hundreds of thousands of dollars per week. A recent report which acknowledged but evaded this question showed just how powerful are the vested interests in Calgary’s taxi industry.