Our People

hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Florida State University in 1994. He is co-editor of the Southern Economic Journal and is a member of the editorial boards for the journals Public Choice and the Journal of Entrepreneurship & Public Policy. He serves as a Regional Advisory Committee Member for the South Carolina Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office Board of Economic Advisors. He is the recipient of numerous awards for both his teaching and research including the Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished Teaching Award from the Southern Economic Association, the Georgescu-Roegen Prize for Best Article of the Year in the Southern Economic Journal, the Association of Private Enterprise Education Distinguished Scholar Award, and the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award for his book Unleashing Capitalism. He has produced over two dozen Ph.D. students, most of which have gone on to pursue distinguished academic careers. He is the author or coauthor of over 250 academic journal articles and books including Growth and Variability in State Tax Revenue: An Anatomy of State Fiscal Crises, The Rule of Law, Unleashing Capitalism, and The Essential Joseph Schumpeter. His publications have appeared in a wide variety of academic journals including the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Law and Economics, Public Choice, Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, and Economic Inquiry. His research has been featured in many leading news outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, Investor’s Business Daily, The Economist Magazine, The Financial Post, CNBC, and the CBS Evening News. His current recent research focuses on the intersection of entrepreneurship and economic policy.

Fraser Institute.   Following her studies at McMaster University (B.Comm.) and the University of Toronto (B.Ed.) she taught mathematics and business subjects in both public and private secondary schools.  She then completed her M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Education at The University of Western Ontario where she was awarded the Bishop Townshend Gold Medal Award for excellence in graduate studies.  From 2006 to 2014 she served at Redeemer University College, first as Assistant Professor and then as Associate Professor of Education. During this time she led several international research collaborations funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, taught a variety of courses including Systems of Education, and was Director of Teacher Education for four years.  Her research and publications in Canadian education policy include studies in home schooling, independent schooling and education funding.  She has presented numerous times over the last two decades in academic and practitioner conferences across North America. Recently a co-author of the Fraser Institute studies Education Spending in Canada: What’s Really Happening? and Financial Savings: Restructuring Education in Ontario Using the British Columbia Model, she continues to appear on TV and in radio talk shows across Canada.  Her work has been featured in many Canadian newspapers including the National Post and Globe and Mail and she has served as an expert witness.

he taught at the University of Western Ontario and Carleton and was employed at the Bank of Canada and the Federal Department of Finance. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario and his B.A. at St. Francis Xavier University. In 2016, he was appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of his outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the country.As an economist, he has authored or edited 45 books on economic topics. His articles on technical economic subjects have appeared in professional journals in Canada, the United States and Europe, including the Canadian Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Canadian Tax Journal, Health Management Quarterly, Weltwertschaftliches Archiv and Health Affairs. His primary concern as the founding Executive Director of the Fraser Institute has been to promote the examination and use of competitive markets as a method for enhancing the lives of Canadians.He is the co-founder, with Milton and Rose D. Friedman, of the Economic Freedom of the World project which is now a collaboration of institutes in 85 countries and produces the annual Economic Freedom of the World Index. The Index is one of the most widely cited such measures in the current academic literature.He is a director of a number of firms and other enterprises, including, Canaccord Capital, Mancal Corporation, The Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, and the owner of the Prado Verde Estates and Falcon MHP. He is a director of The Pacific Academy for Advanced Studies which organizes the annual Alamos Alliance meetings of the Chicago Boys who have been instrumental in the economic reform process in Latin America and elsewhere.He has received the Vancouver Rotary Club Service above Self Award, the Colin M. Brown Freedom Medal and Award by the National Citizens' Coalition, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (LL.D.) from The University of Western Ontario and The Thomas Jefferson Award from the Association of Private Enterprise Education.

has written a number of publications, the first in 1988. Born and raised in Montreal and educated at McGill and Yale, William Watson taught at McGill from 1977 to 2017. He was Chair of Economics from 2005 to 2010 and Acting Chair in 2016/17. He is best known for his twice-weekly columns in the Financial Post (where he has written since 1980 and where he also edits the FPComment page). From 1998 to 2002, he edited Policy Options politiques, the magazine of Montreal’s Institute for Research on Public Policy. While on a leave from McGill in 1997/8 he served as editorial pages editor of the Ottawa Citizen. He won the 1989 National Magazine Awards gold medal for humour for a piece in Saturday Night magazine about a trip to New York. His book, Globalization and the Meaning of Canadian Life, published by the University of Toronto Press, was runner-up for the Donner Prize for best book on Canadian public policy of 1998. His most recent book, The Inequality Trap: Fighting Capitalism instead of Poverty, also from UTPress, was shortlisted for the National Business Book Award 2016.

former Associate Director of Environment and Risk and Regulation Policy at the Fraser Institute. He has a Master’s degree in Economics and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Guelph, under the supervision of Ross McKitrick. Wood completed his undergraduate studies in Economics at the University of British Columbia. His areas of research interest include environmental economics, energy economics, natural resource economics, applied econometrics, applied microeconomics, and public policy.

been teaching since 2003. His research interests include law and economics, with a particular focus on utilities and securities regulation.Before attending law school, Professor Yahya was employed with Industry Canada's Competition Bureau, where he worked on various merger and civil non-merger issues. He has also been a member of the Alberta Utilities Commission and the Selection Advisory Board of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.Professor Yahya has an M.A. in economics from the University of Alberta, a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Toronto, and a J.D. (Summa Cum Laude) from George Mason University School of Law, where he was a Robert A. Levy Fellow in Law and Liberty.

has an Honors Bachelors Degree of Commerce and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Windsor as well as a Post Baccalaureate Degree in Economics from Simon Fraser University. Before rejoining the Fraser Institute in 2012, he was the director of research and managing editor at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute and prior to joining the MLI, Mr. Clemens spent a little over three years in the United States with the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute. He has published over 70 major studies on a wide range of topics, including taxation, government spending, labor market regulation, banking, welfare reform, health care, productivity, and entrepreneurship. He has published over 300 shorter articles, which have appeared in such newspapers as The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Washington Post, Globe and Mail, National Post, and a host of U.S., Canadian, and international newspapers. Mr. Clemens has been a guest on numerous radio and television programs across Canada and the United States. He has appeared before committees of both the House of Commons and the Senate in Canada as an expert witness and briefed state legislators in California. In 2006, he received the coveted Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 award presented by Caldwell Partners as well as an Odyssey Award from the University of Windsor. In 2011, he was awarded (along with his co-authors) the prestigious Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award for the best-selling book The Canadian Century. In 2012, the Governor General of Canada on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, presented Mr. Clemens with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his contributions to the country.