Arthur Cordell

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Arthur Cordell
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Born
Canada
NationalityCanadian
OccupationEconomist, author, policy advisor
EmployerScience Council of Canada
Industry Canada
Known forResearch on the Canadian economy, information technology policy, innovation policy, and the information economy
Notable work
Research on multinational corporations, the conserver society, the future of work, and personal privacy

Canadian economist and author Arthur Cordell has conducted research on the Canadian economy as a science advisor for the Science Council of Canada and as an advisor on information technology policy at the federal department of industry, Industry Canada.

In the 1970, Cordell studied the impact that multinational firms had on innovation in the Canadian economy. His research, which focused on high-technology manufacturing industries, found that when the headquarters of a multinational company was based outside Canada, the research and development irstments and its spinoffs stayed in the home country.

Cordell was a project officer for a 1978 Science Council report advocating for Canada's transition to a conserver society, which emphasized resource conservation and limits to growth to mitigate environmental deterioration. In the 1980s, his focus shifted to the impact that computers were having on the future of work and personal privacy.

In the 1990s, Cordell proposed a bit tax that would be applied to value-added interactive electronic transactions, as a means of creating new sources of revenue for governments in an information-based economy. Cordell wrote that”whether the digital but is part of a foreign exchange transaction, a business teleconference, an Internet e-mail, or an electronic cheque clearance, each bit is a physical manifestation of the new economy at work.” The idea of the bit tax was subsequently borrowed in part by the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology in the Netherlands in its proposal for taxation..[1]

Following retirement, he wrote about the challenges of Internet governance and trust in an Internet-based economy.

Early Life and Education

Cordell was born in Montreal, Canada, on April 6, 1936. When he was nine years old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Returning to Montreal when he was 18, he attended McGill University, where he graduated with a B.A. in economics and psychology. He received a scholarship to study law at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., but he transferred to economics, graduating with an M.A. in 1963 and a Ph.D. (economics-industrial organization) in 1965.[2] His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Imperfect and Monopolistic Competition in an Historical Perspective". The chair of his Ph.D. committee was Professor Alfred E Kahn, who would later be known for his work in support of airline deregulation.

Early Career

Cordell taught economics as a teaching assistant at Cornell University. Following graduation, he served as a staff economist with the National Commission on Food Marketing in Washington, D.C., a U.S. Presidential Commission organized to report on the food distribution system in the U.S. Subsequently, he worked as a senior associate with a firm of economic and management consultants in New York City and then as an assistant manager of economic analysis for General Foods corporation in New York State.[3]

Science Council of Canada

In 1968, Cordell returned to Canada and served as a science adviser on the staff of the Science Council of Canada, an arm's-length organization created by federal statute in 1966 to advise the government on science and technology policy. [4]

Cordell authored a number of Science Council studies.

The Multinational Firm, Foreign Direct Investment, and Canadian Science Policy (1968)[5] examined how the behavior of Canadian subsidiary firms was affected by the research and development policies of their multinational parent companies. Positing that the key variable leading to economic growth was innovation -- the complex chain of events and processes which stretches from the conception of a new idea (often in an R&D lab) to the acceptance in the marketplace of a new or improved good or service -- Cordell examined the impact of the innovative potential of the corporate structure of the country when multi-national corporations were active therein. The study found that when the headquarters of a multi-national company was based outside Canada, the research and development investment and its spinoffs stayed in the home country. The emphasis in the study was on high-technology manufacturing industries.[6]

With James W. Gilmour, Cordell co-authored The Role and Function of Government Laboratories and the Transfer of Technology to the Manufacturing Sector, which explored the challenges in linking the transfer of technology from federal laboratories to the secondary manufacturing sector.[7]

Cordell was project officer for the Science Council study entitled Canada as a Conserver Society: Resource Uncertainties and the Need for New Technologies.[8]

Industry Canada

From 1988 to 2009, Arthur Cordell served as a special advisor on information technology policy for the federal department of industry, Industry Canada. In 2009, Cordell retired from Industry Canada. He became an adjunct professor at Carleton University's School of Mass Communications. He was designated a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science.[9] He continued to present papers on topics related to Internet governance, the digital divide, and building trust in an Internet based economy, notably at the Research Conference on Communications, Technology, and Internet Policy known as TPRC, a group that meets annually in the Washington, D.C. area.[10]

A Select List of Publications Authored or Co-authored by Arthur Cordell

Presentations

“taxing the Internet: The Proposal for a Bit Tax,” an address delivered to the International Tax Program at Harvard Law School on February 14, 1997. Https://www.icommercecentral.com/open-access/taxing-the-internet-the-proposal-for-a-bit-tax.pdf

References

  1. ↑ A Plan to Tax Cyberspace, by Bruno Giussani, New York Times online, February 8,, 1997 https://archives.nytimes.com/www.nytimescom/library/cyber/euro/021897euro.htmal
  2. ↑ Biography in The Multinational Firm, Foreign Direct Investment and Canadian Science Policy (Background Study for the Science Council of Canada, December 1971, Special Study No. 22) at page 5.
  3. ↑ Ibid, page 5.
  4. ↑ The Canadian Encyclopedia. "Science Council of Canada" by Leslie Millin and Guy Steed, published online February 7, 2006 https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/science-council-of-canada
  5. ↑ https://www.uottawa.ca/research-innovation/sites/g/files/bhrskd326/files/2022-08/special_study_no._22_-_the_multinational_firm_foreign_direct_investment_and_canadian_policy.pdf Template:Bare URL PDF
  6. ↑ Ibid at pages 13-14.
  7. ↑ https://www.uottawa.ca/research-innovation/sites/g/files/bhrskd326/files/2022-08/background_study_no._35_-_the_role_and_function_of_government_laboratories.pdf Template:Bare URL PDF
  8. ↑ Science Council of Canada. Canada as a Conserver Society: Resource Uncertainties and the Need for New Technologies, (Background Report No. 27). Ottawa, ON: SCC (1977).
  9. ↑ "Arthur Cordell, Author at WAAS".
  10. ↑ https://www.tprcweb.com

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