Shortlisted for Donner prize

[HALIFAX] — Today AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley announced that another Institute publication has been placed on the shortlist for a prestigious prize. The Donner Canadian Foundation has released the shortlist for the Donner Prize, “the award for best book on Canadian Public Policy”, and the only award of its kind in Canada. This year the list includes Retreat from Growth: Atlantic Canada and the Negative Sum Economy, by former AIMS Senior Policy Analyst Fred McMahon.

Retreat from Growth analyses the effects of 40 years of massive transfers and other forms of government intervention designed to close the disparity gap between Atlantic Canada and the rest of the country. The book shows in detail how, despite heroic policy measures, Atlantic Canada closed the gap with the national average at less than half the rate theory and evidence from other countries would have predicted if no special policy measures had been in place. In other words, net transfers worth hundreds of billions of dollars actually appear to have retarded, not accelerated, Atlantic Canada’s economic and social progress. Nobel-prize winning economist Prof. Robert Mundell wrote an enthusiastic Foreword to the book.

Retreat from Growth is the companion volume to Road to Growth, a book which examined other economies that have proven able to overcome anaemic economic growth much more successfully than Atlantic Canada. Last month AIMS announced that that book had been shortlisted as well, for the Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Award, an international award given to recognise excellence in think tank publications. AIMS has won the Fisher Award twice in recent years.

There are six other books on the Donner Prize shortlist this year, including some of the biggest titles and best known authors in public policy in Canada today. Other topics covered include aboriginal policy, the Conservative transition in Ontario, the judiciary and the Charter, and trucking deregulation. The first prize is $25,000, and each of the two runners-up will receive $10,000.

-30-

For further information, please contact Brian Lee Crowley, President of AIMS, (902) 499-1998

The full text of Retreat From Growth is available on the AIMS website at www.aims.ca/Publications/Retreat/toc.htm