Research

I work in a variety of areas spanning economics and public policy. My academic work currently focuses on Canadian climate policy, energy affordability, and energy markets, with a little bit of economic history and public finance.  My research spans academic articles and book chapters,  policy articles, short policy notes, and I also write technical reports for governments.

To view my research by topic area, follow this link. Work in progress is available here.

Research Interests

• Climate policy

• Emissions pricing

• Energy (oil and gas) markets

• Public policy

• Canadian economic history

Featured Research

The Climate Canadian Climate Policy Partnership

This is a national research network that provides publicly accessible information on Canadian climate policies, supporting effective strategies to adapt and mitigate climate change, improving resilience, and helping Canada meet its net-zero emissions target.

Outputs include:

• “Developing a Climate Change Mitigation Policy Inventory for Canada.” (with Will Scott, Alaz Munzur and Katharina Koch). Submitted.

  • We establish a methodology and inventory of 327 climate policies in Canada, the coding protocol used to assess policy design elements, and the ongoing work to create accurate metrics for assessing policy stringency and coverage.

  • The majority of policies are abatement support policies (carrots), followed by mandatory policies (sticks), and then information-based policies.  The transportation and buildings sectors dominate the mitigation policy landscape, as do multi-sector policies.

• A downloadable comprehensive database of 327 federal, provincial and territorial climate-change-mitigation policies in Canada. 

• A searchable and interactive web-based database hosted by 440 Megatonnes, a project of the Canadian Climate Institute.

• Blog post published by 440 Megatonnes, an initiative of the Canadian Climate Institute.

Exploring the Landscape of Canadian Climate Policy

I present an overview of modern Canadian climate policy, and then propose a research agenda for future Canadian climate policy research. This potential research agenda follows three themes: effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of policy interventions, equity in climate policy, and understanding policy interactions.

This was published in the 50th anniversary edition of Canadian Public Policy in 2024. 

I presented this work at the Canadian Economics Association Annual Meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba on June 3, 2023.

• Published paper

• Slides from my talk

• Draft paper

Carbon Tax Costs and Distributional Impacts

This is joint work with Dr. Brett Dolter, University of Regina and Dr. G. Kent Fellows, University of Calgary. It is published in Canadian Public Policy and received the 2023 Vanderkamp Prize for the best article in Canadian Public Policy.

Given the differences in provincial approaches to emissions pricing and the differences in household spending, it can be difficult to determine exactly how much this carbon price costs Canadian households. In an effort to help people understand the household impact of carbon pricing in Canada, for each province and by income decile, we present estimates of:

• costs by energy type (electricity, natural gas, gasoline, heating oil),

• total costs from carbon pricing,

• the value of a rebate under different rebate mechanisms, and

• the net effect of carbon pricing for Canadian household budgets.

We analyse four revenue-recycling options: (1) a means-tested sales tax (GST/HST) credit increase; (2) a lump sum dividend; (3) a sales tax rate reduction; and (4) an increased basic exemption for personal income taxes. We characterise the distributional impact and progressivity of each revenue-recycling option.

We find the carbon tax is generally progressive even without revenue recycling, the GST rebate and lump sum rebate are progressive, the sales tax rate reduction is mostly regressive, and the income tax change is regressive. Importantly, the large-emitters system mitigates the indirect costs that exacerbates the effect of carbon pricing on households.

The paper explains our methodology and results in detail, and report results on the website www.carbontaxcosts.ca.