Abstract
In this article, we track the historical movement in Canada’s economic centre of gravity (ECG) since the early 20th century. A simple weighted mean centre approach is applied to a novel data set containing long-run estimates of household income at the provincial level. The analysis reveals that from 1926 to 2013, Canada’s ECG shifted westward by a net distance of 204 kilometres. Concomitant with this broad geographical shift, we identify six distinct historical moments during which major spatial realignments occurred, including a significant west-to-east move during the Great Depression years and two important east-to-west shifts during the energy-driven resource booms of the 1970s and post-2000 period. Time series modeling confirms that the ups and downs of resource commodity prices are indeed strongly associated with historical movements of the ECG in Canada.
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