An economic and fiscal comparison of Alberta and other North American energy producing provinces and states /

The presence of deficits while other energy-producing jurisdictions are in surplus coupled with the gen- eral strength of the Alberta economy as highlighted in the first section of this paper should give cause for concern about the general state of Alberta’s government finances. [...] In terms of the size of government, Alberta maintains the fourth high- est level of per capita spending but the third smallest government sector as a share of the economy. [...] To a certain extent some of the growth in GDP observed in Figure 3 is a function of the increases in the population experienced by each of the jurisdictions. [...] Canada weathered the recession better than the U. S. and much of the G-7 as a result of its strong resource and commodity sectors, the general strength of its financial sector institutions, and the resilience of the housing sector. [...] Government fiscal comparison The second set of analyses presented in this study compares the fiscal per- formance of the provincial and state governments of the various energy-pro- ducing jurisdictions by looking at government surpluses/deficits, the amount of government debt, and the size of government (i.e., government spending).17 Provincial and state fiscal indicators are not as readily compar