Chris Ragan, Chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission and Director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at the University of McGill, will host a 2-hour live and interactive webinar discussing how market-based tools such as user fees can help municipalities address their challenges. This module will provide participants with a framework for analysing market-based tools and identify design features that can help achieve desired outcomes and mitigate concerns. A brief online quiz completed after the webinar will allow participants to master and retain important concepts.
Module 1 is a prerequisite and must be completed before taking Module 2-5. Students who participate in all webinars and complete all quizzes and case studies for Modules 1 and 5, as well as one of Modules 2, 3 or 4 will receive a certificate.
Instructor
CHRIS RAGAN
Chair, Canada's Ecofiscal Commission
Director, Max Bell School of Public Policy Department of Economics, McGill University
Formerly
Clifford Clark Visiting Economist, Finance Canada Special Advisor to the Governor, Bank of Canada
Christopher Ragan is the inaugural Director of McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy and is an Associate Professor in McGill’s Department of Economics. He is the Chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, which launched in November 2014 with a 5-year horizon to identify policy options to improve environmental and economic performance in Canada. He is also a member of the federal finance minister’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, which began in early 2016. Chris Ragan is a Research Fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute, from 2010-13 he held the Institute’s David Dodge Chair in Monetary Policy, and for many years was a member of its Monetary Policy Council. In 2009-10, he was the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at Finance Canada; in 2004-05 he served as Special Advisor to the Governor of theDr Bank of Canada. In 2010-12 he was the President of the Ottawa Economics Association. Ragan’s published research focuses mostly on the conduct of macroeconomic policy. His 2004 book, co-edited with William Watson, is called Is the Debt War Over? In 2007 he published A Canadian Priorities Agenda, co-edited with Jeremy Leonard and France St-Hilaire from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. The Ecofiscal Commission’s The Way Forward (2015) was awarded the prestigious Doug Purvis Memorial Prize for the best work in Canadian economic policy. Chris Ragan is an enthusiastic teacher and public communicator. In 2007 Ragan was awarded the Noel Fieldhouse teaching prize at McGill. He is the author of Economics (formerly co-authored with Richard Lipsey), which after fifteen editions is still the most widely used introductory economics textbook in Canada. Ragan also writes frequent columns for newspapers, most often in The Globe and Mail. He teaches in several MBA and Executive MBA programs, including at McGill, EDHEC in France, and in special courses offered by McKinsey & Company. He gives dozens of public speeches every year. Ragan received his B.A. (Honours) in economics in 1984 from the University of Victoria and his M.A. in economics from Queen’s University in 1985. He then moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where he completed his Ph.D. in economics at M.I.T. in 1989. See his personal McGill website for downloads of his published research as well as his newspaper columns: https://mcgill.ca/economics/christopher-t-s-ragan
