The Department of Economics, University of Toronto

Sijie Lin Studies Human Creativity in Prompt Creation with Generative AI What is the value of human work in a world of generative AI? In her paper, Learning to Prompt: Human Adaptation in Production with Generative AI, Economics PhD candidate Sijie Lin investigated the rol...

It takes creativity to generate meaningful art using AI, found @sijielin.bsky.social in her study of Midjourney input and output. #AIart #AIcreativity #EconJobMarket newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/sijie-lin-st...

Space and Cyberspace: Investigating Food Delivery Apps and Restaurant Real Estate with Siyuan Liu Fewer people are waiting to be seated to dine at their favourite restaurants. Instead, they wait at home for delivery services like Uber Eats and Door Dash to bring them a variety of cooked fare. That...

People aren't waiting to be seated. They're waiting at home for their food via delivery apps. Still, Siyuan Liu found the rise of Uber Eats, Door Dash, etc, increased the demand for restaurant real estate. #Fooddelivery #realestate #EconJobMarket newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/space-and-cy...

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Vanya Georgieva is earning a PhD in trade economics so you don't have to. Tariffs, subsidies and other tools that can be weaponized in a trade war are the focus of her research. #InternationalTrade #tariffdebate #EconJobMarket newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/navigating-i...

Teaching and Learning About Correlation Sensitivity with Pegah Rahmani To explain correlation sensitivity, the Rahmani refers to start up culture. Most people know that most start ups fail within a few years of beginning. They also know about the origins of Amazon and Mi...

Pegah Rahmani dreams of mathematical proofs. Testing them is her day job. The economic theorist created a new model for taking correlation sensitivity into account in decision making. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/teaching-and... #EconomicTheory #DecisionMaking #EconJobMarket

Learning About the Health Economics Job Market How does networking help students find jobs? What’s the difference between a letter of recommendation and a strong letter of recommendation? In early November, undergraduate students in Assistant Prof...

Student's in Professor Karen Ugarte Bravo's Health Economics class learned about working in the field from professionals Levi Barnett-Zeman, Ana Correa and Young Jung. Read the newsletter to find out what they learned. Bhattarai. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/learning-abo...

Closing the On-Reserve/Off-Reserve Indigenous Education Gap While Preserving Culture: Noah Spencer For Indigenous K-12 students in Canada, educational outcomes can be very different depending on whether they live on or off reserves. “In my dataset, which covers students graduating between 2007 and...

New research on Indigenous education in Canada: Why do grad rates differ b/ on-reserve and off-reserve students? Noah Spencer digs into the data and finds policy solutions work. Hint: It's funding! newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/closing-the-...
#EconResearch #IndigenousEducation #EconJobMarket

The Importance of PhD Transparency in Today’s Job Market - ProMarket Is pursuing a PhD a worthwhile financial investment? In new research, Dwayne Benjamin, Boriana Miloucheva, and Natalia Vigezzi compare earnings of PhD graduates to other degree holders, highlighting t...

Is a graduate education, especially to the doctoral level, good for the students themselves? @utoronto.ca's Dwayne Benjamin, Boriana Miloucheva, and Natalia Vigezzi investigated. Read more in "The Importance of PhD Transparency in Today's Job Market". www.promarket.org/2025/11/25/t...

Bisma Khan on How Busing Can Move Developing Cities Forward Access to public transit infrastructure changes the patterns of where people live and work. Economists also know those changes are necessarily all improvements, nor do they affect everyone. Bisma Khan...

Bisma Khan studied how the introduction of Lahore’s BRT system reshaped residential sorting and the labor supply. “This is an important issue for populations in large cities across the developing world, said Gustavo Bobonis. #PublicTransportation newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/bisma-khan-o...

“There’s so much uncertainty nowadays, and the world feels unpredictable,” Quinlan Lee explained. “That means the models economists use need to be much more complex.” newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/using-nonlin... #EconJobMarket #EconomicTheory #EconomicShocks

The Little Schoolhouses that Transformed Canada: Devin Bissky Dziadyk The one-room schoolhouse is a historical fixture of the Canadian identity. If anything, the legacy of these little rural centres of childhood literacy may not loom largely enough. According to new res...

Converted schoolhouses are not just landmarks. According to @bisskydziadyk.bsky.social's research, the creation and expansion of one-room schoolhouses was transformative for Canada's labour market & economy. #EconJobMarket #EconTwitter newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/the-little-s...

Jiaying Gu Appointed Canada Research Chair Associate Professor Jiaying Gu of the Department of Economics is now a Canada Research Chair (CRC). Gu’s Tier 2 CRC in Statistical Decision Making comes with a total award of $120,000 for each year of...

Associate Professor Jiaying Gu is an econometrician. She is also our newest Canada Research Chair! newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/jiaying-gu-a... #StatisticalDecisionMaking #DecisionMaking

For as Long as We Shall Have a Place to Live: Sean Elliott Marriage rates have declined. Cohabitation rates are up. There’s another social change less spoken about. Fewer people than ever are matching up at all. Sean Elliott, a PhD candidate with the Departme...

"Why aren't you kids married yet?" If you're an adult with grandparents, you've probably been asked. Just in time for the holidays, Sean Elliott has an evidence-based comeback for you: Housing prices. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/for-as-long-... #EconJobMarket #EconSky #HousingCrisis

COP30 Must Close the Adaptation Gap. Bangladesh Depends on It At the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, world leaders are debating how to finance climate adaptation in developing countries like Bangladesh.

Professor @jeffreysun.bsky.social and student Tishma Joarder co-authored this piece about closing the adaptation gap in Bangladesh. #ClimateEconomics #ClimateChange earth.org/at-cop30-wea...

An aerial view of King's College Cirlce

#UofT launches $24-million program to create 100 new postdoctoral positions, accelerate independent research ➡️ uoft.me/bZI

From Taylor’s Jet to Taxation for Climate Rescue: Tasnia Hussain Criticism of Taylor Swift’s private jet flights inspired Tasnia Hussain. The PhD candidate’s job market paper, Optimal Carbon Policy Under Carbon Inequality, now contributes evidence for tax policies ...

@taylorswiftjets.grndcntrl.net inspired climate economist @taasniah.bsky.social. The PhD candidate may not have written the ultimate break up album, but she test policy solutions to assist society's uncoupling from fossil fuels and carbon inequality. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/from-taylors...

Welcome to @econuoft.bsky.social Professor Duggan!

How to Best Help People When They’re Down and Out: Steven Ryan In November 2014, the price of oil was already in decline. OPEC’s leadership decided not to cut production. As a result, throughout the beginning of 2015, oil prices continued to decline and tens of t...

Do you want some good news about social programs? Steven Ryan found out that extended EI benefits help people find better jobs. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/how-to-best-... #EconJobMarket #EconSky

Can anti-corruption campaigns reduce vote buying? Lessons from Brazil’s municipal audits In Brazil, anti-corruption audits substantially reduced vote buying and citizens’ demands for private favours – demonstrating how transparency initiatives can weaken clientelism and strengthen democra...

🆕 Can anti-corruption campaigns reduce vote buying? Lessons from Brazil’s municipal audits

Today on VoxDev w/ Gustavo Bobonis (@econuoft.bsky.social), @pgertler.bsky.social (@berkeleyhaas.bsky.social), @marcogn.bsky.social (UC Berkeley) & Simeon Nichter (UCSD): voxdev.org/topic/instit...

Death, Taxes and Understanding Capital Gains: Sobia Hasan Jafry People in Canada don’t change how they behave in response to changes in capital gains tax rates. That doesn’t mean they don’t respond at all when they hear word of changes to the regulations governing...

Sobia Jafry studies household and personal finance. A unique feature of Canada's #CapitalGains taxation opened research opportunities she could realize during her PhD studies. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/death-taxes-... #EconJobMarket #CapitalGains

From Nonpartisan to Partisan: Dario Toman Examines How Party Affiliations Reshape Local Democracy What happens when local elections include party affiliations on the ballot? Dario Toman, a PhD Candidate with the Department of Economics, examined how adding parties to local ballots reshapes who run...

What happens when local elections include party affiliations on the ballot? Dario Toman, a PhD Candidate with the Department of Economics, examined how adding parties to local ballots reshapes who runs for office, who wins & how voters make decisions. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/from-nonpart...

The Limits of Productivity, the Potential of Customer Access: Mahmood Haddara Firms don’t just differ in how efficiently they produce goods or services. They also differ in how many customers they can reach. That simple reminder is at the heart of new research by Mahmood Haddar...

Firm growth is traditionally associated with productivity, but Mahmood Haddara thought there might be another element at play. He looked at customer access & found out it's responsible for 60% of firm growth. #Productivy #CustomerAccess #EconJobMarket newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/the-limits-o...

Power and Carbon Markets: How Well-Designed Markets Can Address Climate Change Join special guest Professor of Business Economics Michael Pollitt on November 7 from 3:00-4:30 PM at the Department of Economics, 150 St. George Street, room 100. During this seminar, the Fellow of ...

Michael Pollitt is coming to UofT! Join our guest on November 7, 3-4:30 PM at the Dept of Economics, rm 100. Pollitt will lead the seminar discussion on how appropriately designed markets help address the climate crisis. #BusinessEcon #ClimateEcon newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/power-and-ca...

Researching Refugees, Their Migration, Labour and Hope: Natalia Vigezzi When people move, their labour moves, no matter the conditions that inspired -- or forced -- their migration. Migration economics, a subfield of labour economics, investigates that reality. “It’s ...

In her job market paper, Natalia Vigezzi asked a powerful question: Does the local job market refugees encounter when they first arrive affect their long-term success and that of their children? newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/researching-... #EconJobMarket #MigrationEconomics

When specialisation backfires: Why Britain’s industrial past still shapes its cities today Industrial clusters can fuel economic booms today, but can also trap cities into tomorrow's decline. Evidence from two centuries of British cities reveals the lasting costs of specialisation.

🆕 When specialisation backfires: Why Britain’s industrial past still shapes its cities today

Today on VoxDev w/ @heblich.bsky.social (@econuoft.bsky.social), Dávid Krisztián Nagy (CREI), Alex Trew (@uofgasbs.bsky.social) & Yanos Zylberberg (@bristoluni.bsky.social): voxdev.org/topic/migrat...

Throughout history, racial identity has been a tool elites imposed to make it more difficult for workers to organize and resist. Dan McGee of the Department of Economics has developed a model for examining this divide and conquer strategy. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/talking-abou...

Overcoming Propaganda with Fact-Based News: Dina O’Brien’s Fieldwork in Kazakhstan The Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan seldom appears in Western media outlets. The exception was coverage of the pro-democracy protests of 2022 when the authoritarian government suppressed mass mob...

What happens when people exposed to propaganda are provided with fact-based news? PhD candidate Dina O'Brien embarked on field research in Kazakhstan to find out. newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/overcoming-p...

Reminder: #ECONUofT Media training for faculty and PhD students is today from noon to 1:30 in the Max Gluskin House Lounge.

Reminder: Media training for faculty and PhD students is today from noon to 1:30. Join Josslyn Johnstone and Sara Goddard of @artsci.utoronto.ca press relations for a presentation and Q&A on talking about research for general audiences in the Max Gluskin House Lounge. #EconUofT #EconJobMarket2025

“Abdelrahman’s research is rigorous and policy-relevant,” said Professor Kory Kroft. “As a scholar, he shows real grit and intellectual honesty—he is determined, seeks the truth, and follows the evidence." newsletter.economics.utoronto.ca/the-commutin...

Postsecondary faculty and staff have their calls to action to reflect upon the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. While all of us acknowledge and mourn the legacy of residential schools, we also consider how we can move forward in a good way.