Products & Services
Examples of Special & Unusual Projects
Brown Economic has honed a reputation for preparing “court-ready” reports for individuals who have been injured, or for families where a member has died, from a motor vehicle accident (or any other reason for the interruption). In these cases, Brown Economic does a thorough analysis of the injured or deceased’s background, investigating their qualifications, work history and career aspirations. Salary and wage data are vetted carefully in the statistical benchmarking that is done to try to predict the injured or deceased person’s age-earnings profile until retirement. Then, economic data is thoroughly researched and examined for applicability with some of the key contingencies - fringe benefits, unemployment rates, disability rates, etc. Readers of our newsletter are familiar with many of these topics.
What the reader may not know is that Brown Economic has been hired to work on numerous unusual and unique assignments. Here is a list of some of them:
- Measuring the impact of disability on wages using Canada's 1991 HALS, 2001 and 2006 PALS microdata databases;
- Calculating the impact of wrongful imprisonment for David Milgaard and his family resulting in a $10 million settlement;
- Analyzing local and regional food economies in Canada to determine the status and patronage of local food markets (for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) 1
- Identify, investigate the background of, and document traceability systems2 in various regions in the world (for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)3
- Researching the impact of disability on "participation": the economic concept of whether, and how much, to work in the paid labour market 4
- Analyzing Canadian household expenditure to determine the decedent’s consumption in fatality cases, based on Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending (SHS)5
- Assessing the impact of sexual abuse amongst 70 Nunavut males resulting in a $21 million settlement for all involved in this litigation;
- Evaluating the viability of constructing an NHL arena facility using demographic and economic indicators (the "True North" project in Winnipeg, Manitoba) for airing by CBC;
- Assessing the social discount rate in litigation involving destroyed timber and woodland;
- Developing and attesting to the methodology for the "lost years' deduction" in fatality cases with no dependents under the Survival of Actions Act, affirmed by the Court of Appeal of Alberta in Duncan v. Baddeley;
- Impact of the delay in education - goes beyond simple loss of time (Brodie v. Canada (Attorney General)) 2010
- Examination of pilot earnings by type of commercial aircraft
- Effect of alcohol abuse on employment & earnings
- Review of "emotional intelligence" literature to predict career of CEO
- Analysis of expenditures of high-income households - with a view to analyzing maximum child support payable
- Projecting the potential career path of a woman who was held back from progressing in a career as a "landman" (Delorie Walsh Human Rights case)
- Loss of farming income when tax returns show losses (in conjunction with agricultural economists)
- Predicting NHL career draft position from player statistics on points, goals, penalty minutes
- Calculating losses based upon paragraphs in trial decisions from judges (Palmquist, McLaren, Russell, Kirby)
- Projecting earnings of physicians when their fee-for-service income cannot be quantified using Census income (obtain statistical data from provincial health bodies)
- Analysis of "return-to-work" projections for women who were out of the work force raising children - research of economic literature on predicting participation after childbirth
- Pension and fringe benefits loss of university professor when prejudicially terminated early
- Estimation of working life expectancy for older plaintiffs (see also: Brown Economic's Working Life/Life Expectancy Calculator)
- Analysis of "arm’s length" compensation when family owns business using management consulting salary data
- Estimating pecuniary compensation when defamation occurs (as per Young v. Bella, Rowe & Memorial University of Newfoundland SCC 2006)
- Estimating compensation when "oppression" is alleged (McRoberts v. Whissell (2005))
- Estimating tax regulations, TIPPs bond rates, interest rates and prejudgment interest for various US states for injured US citizens (Ohio, Wisconsin, Oregon, Utah)
- Estimating pecuniary loss due to sexual assault (as per B.M.G. v. Nova Scotia (Attorney General), 2007)
- Calculating losses for start-up ventures in conjunction with industry experts’ opinions on unit prices, royalty rates, usage per population, etc.
- Calculating losses for inmates and family members when an inmate is wrongfully imprisoned (David Milgaard & Family6; Stephen Truscott)
- Calculating pecuniary losses when a person is wrongfully confined and sterilized7
- Estimating pension losses for members of defined benefit pension plans
- Assess the specific impact of visual impairment amongst the impact of various types of disability
- Participated in large-scale litigation involving New Brunswick potato farmers and the impact of a US border closure due to a potato virus8
- Assessing a proper discount rate in various contexts
- Calculating the "cost of raising children" for the Federal Department of Justice (1991) to create the child support guidelines.
[1] This project was spearheaded by Dr. Stephen Clark, one of Brown Economic's Atlantic consultants.
[2] The Food Safety and Quality Policy Directorate ("FSQPD") of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada define traceability as "the ability to follow an item, or a group of items, whether animal, plant, food product or ingredient, from one point in the supply chain to another, either backwards or forwards".
[3] This project was spearheaded by Dr. Stephen Clark, one of Brown Economic's Atlantic consultants.
[4] Resulted in working paper and jointly published article between Dr. Herb Emery at the University of Calgary and Brown Economic's Principal, Cara Brown, entitled "The Impact of Disability on Earnings and Labour Force Participation in Canada: Evidence from the 2001 PALS and from Canadian case law" Journal of Legal Economics vol. 16, no. 2, April 2010.
[5] The most recent article is entitled "Personal Consumption Rates for Canada: Update of 2000 PCRs Using 2007-08 Survey of Household Spending data" Journal of Forensic Economics 23(2), 2012.
[6] Resulted in a $10 million settlement.
[7] Brown Economic's Principal, Cara Brown, testified in Muir v. Alberta (1995).
[8] Dr. Stephen Clark and Ms. Brown prepared the report jointly for Agriculture Canada.
[2] The Food Safety and Quality Policy Directorate ("FSQPD") of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada define traceability as "the ability to follow an item, or a group of items, whether animal, plant, food product or ingredient, from one point in the supply chain to another, either backwards or forwards".
[3] This project was spearheaded by Dr. Stephen Clark, one of Brown Economic's Atlantic consultants.
[4] Resulted in working paper and jointly published article between Dr. Herb Emery at the University of Calgary and Brown Economic's Principal, Cara Brown, entitled "The Impact of Disability on Earnings and Labour Force Participation in Canada: Evidence from the 2001 PALS and from Canadian case law" Journal of Legal Economics vol. 16, no. 2, April 2010.
[5] The most recent article is entitled "Personal Consumption Rates for Canada: Update of 2000 PCRs Using 2007-08 Survey of Household Spending data" Journal of Forensic Economics 23(2), 2012.
[6] Resulted in a $10 million settlement.
[7] Brown Economic's Principal, Cara Brown, testified in Muir v. Alberta (1995).
[8] Dr. Stephen Clark and Ms. Brown prepared the report jointly for Agriculture Canada.