Robin Boadway, OC, FRSC

David Chadwick Smith Chair in Economics

Mail:   Department of Economics, Queen's University, Kingston Ontario Canada K7L 3N6

Phone: (613) 533-2266      Fax: (613) 533-6668      Electronic mail: boadwayr at econ.queensu.ca

Personal Information

After completing secondary school in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, I received a degree in engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada. From there, I went to Oxford to study economics and then to Queen's where I completed my Ph.D. I have taught at Queen's University since 1973, with year-long interruptions to take up a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago (1976-77) and to be visiting scholar at the University of Oxford (1980-81) and Université Catholique de Louvain (1986-87). I was Head of the Department of Economics at Queen's from 1981-86, and President of the Canadian Economics Association in 1996-97. I served as Editor of the Canadian Journal of Economics from 1987-93, the German Economic Review from 1999-2002 and the Journal of Public Economics from 2003-2008. My research interests have been in the areas of public sector economics and welfare economics, with special emphasis on tax theory and policy, redistribution, fiscal federalism and cost-benefit analysis. My work includes books entitled Public Sector Economics, Welfare Economics, Canadian Tax Policy, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Canada and Fiscal Federalism: Principles and Practice of Multiorder Governance as well as articles in academic journals. (See attached CV.[pdf format]) I have been involved in research studies for the John Deutsch Institute, the Economic Council of Canada, the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, the Financial and Fiscal Commission in South Africa, the Canadian Tax Foundation and for Royal Commissions on the Economic Union, on Passenger Transportation and on Aboriginal Peoples, and various Canadian government departments. I was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1986 and an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2008, and was the Distinguished CES Fellow at the University of Munich in 2009. I am currently President of the International Institute of Public Finance.

Recent Publications

Books

Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers, edited with Anwar Shah (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2007).
Higher Education in Canada, edited with Charles Beach and Marvin McInnis (Kingston: John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy, 2005).
Advances in Public Economics, edited with Baldev Raj (New York: Physica-Verlag Heidelberg, 2000).
Canadian Tax Policy, Third Edition, with Harry Kitchen, (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1999).
Equalization: Its Contribution to Canada's Economic and Fiscal Progress, edited with Paul Hobson (Kingston: John Deutsch Institute, 1998).
Principles of Micro-Economics and the Canadian Economy, Second Edition, with Joseph E. Stiglitz (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997).
Principles of Macro-Economics and the Canadian Economy, Second Edition, with Joseph E. Stiglitz (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997).
Reform of Retirement Income Policy, edited with Keith G. Banting (Kingston: School of Policy Studies, 1997), 339 pp.

Journal Articles

'Efficiency and Redistribution: An Evaluative Review of Louis Kaplow's The Theory of Taxation and Public Economics,' Journal of Economic Literature, forthcoming.
'Mobility and Fiscal Imbalance,' with Jean-Francois Tremblay, National Tax Journal, forthcoming.
'Optimal Tax Design and Enforcement with an Informal Sector,' with Motohiro Sato, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 1 (1, 2009), 1-27.
'Optimal Marginal and Average Income Taxation under Maximin,' with Laurence Jacquet, Journal of Economic Theory 143 (1, 2008), 425-41.
'Bureaucratic Advice and Political Governance,' with Motohiro Sato, Journal of Public Economic Theory 10 (4, 2008), 503-27.
'Pigouvian Taxation in a Ramsey World,' with Jean-Francois Tremblay, Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting and Economics 15 (3, 2008), 183-204.
'Commitment and Matching Contributions to Public Goods,' with Zhen Song and Jean-Francois Tremblay, Journal of Public Economics 91 (9, 2007), 1664-83.
'Redistributive Taxation under Ethical Behaviour,' with Nicolas Marceau and Steeve Mongrain, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 109 (3, 2007), 505-29.
'The Annual Tax Expenditures Accounts: A Critique,' Canadian Tax Journal 55 (1, 2007), 106-29.
'Optimal Taxation with Consumption Time as a Leisure or Labor Substitute,' with Firouz Gahvari, Journal of Public Economics 90 (November, 2006), 1851-78.
'Financing and Taxing New Firms under Asymmetric Information, with Michael Keen, FinanzArchiv 62 (4, 2006), 471-502.
'Tagging and Redistributive Taxation,' with Pierre Pestieau, Annales d'Economie et de Statistique 83-84 (Juillet/Decembre, 2006), 123-47.
'Principles of Cost-Benefit Analysis,' Public Policy Review 2 (1, 2006), 1-43.
'A Theory of Fiscal Imbalance,' with Jean-Francois Tremblay, FinanzArchiv 62 (1, 2006), 1-27.
'Social Insurance and Redistribution with Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection,' with Manuel Leite-Montiero, Maurice Marchand and Pierre Pestieau, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 108 (2, 2006), 279--98.}
'The Principles and Practice of Federalism: Lessons for the EU?,' Swedish Economic Policy Review 13 (1, 2006), 9-62.
'Trading off Tax Distortion and Tax Evasion,' with Wolfram F. Richter, Journal of Public Economic Theory 7 (3, 2005), 361-81.
'Income Tax Reform for a Globalized World: The Case for a Dual Income Tax,' Journal of Asian Economics 16 (6, 2005), 910-27.
'The Theory and Practice of Equalization,' CESifo Economic Studies 50 (1, 2004), 211-54.
'An Evaluation of the Stabilization Properties of Equalization in Canada,' with Masayoshi Hayashi, Canadian Public Policy XXX (March, 2004), 91-109.
'Agglomeration Effects and the Competition for Firms,' with Katherine Cuff and Nicolas Marceau, International Tax and Public Finance 11 (5, 2004), 623-45.
'Comments on Talbot Page, William Jaeger, and Richard Howarth,' American Journal of Agricultural Economics 86 (August, 2004), 826-8.
'The Dual Income Tax System - An Overview,' CESifo DICE REPORT, Journal for Institutional Comparisons 2 (Autumn, 2004), 3-8.
'An Optimal Contract Approach to Hospital Financing,' with Maurice Marchand and Motohiro Sato, Journal of Health Economics 23 (January, 2004), 85-110.
'The Theory and Practice of Equalization,' CESifo Economic Studies, 50 (1, 2004), 211-54.
'Redistribution and Employment Policies with Endogenous Unemployment,' with Katherine Cuff and Nicolas Marceau, Journal of Public Economics 87 (2003), 2407-30.
'Equalization and the Decentralization of Revenue-Raising in a Federation,' with Katherine Cuff and Maurice Marchand, Journal of Public Economic Theory 5 (April, 2003), 201-28.
'Simultaneous Public and Private Provision of Services, Asymmetric Information and Innovation,' with Maurice Marchand and Jean-Francois Tremblay, International Tax and Public Finance 10 (2003), 317--39.
'Optimal Redistribution with Heterogeneous Preferences,' with Maria del Mar Racionero, Maurice Marchand and Pierre Pestieau, Journal of Public Economic Theory 4 (October, 2002), 475-98.
'Joint Tax Evasion,' with Nicolas Marceau and Steeve Mongrain Canadian Journal of Economics 35 (August 2002), 417-35.
'Inter-Jurisdictional Competition for Firms,' with Katherine Cuff and Nicolas Marceau, International Economic Review 43 (August 2002), 761-82.
'Inter-Governmental Fiscal Relations: The Facilitator of Fiscal Decentralization', Constitutional Political Economy 12 (June, 2001), 93-121.
'An Empirical Analysis of Intergovernmental Tax Interaction: The Case of Business Income Tax in Canada,' with Masayoshi Hayashi, Canadian Journal of Economics 34 (May, 2001), 481-503.
'A Minimum Wage can be Welfare-Improving and Employment-Enhancing,' with Katherine Cuff, European Economic Review 45 (2001), 553-76.
'Fiscal Equalization in Japan: Assessment and Recommendations,' with Paul Hobson and Nobuki Mochida, The Journal of Economics 66 (January, 2001), 24-57.
'The Optimality of Punishing only the Innocent: The Case of Tax Evasion,' with Motohiro Sato, International Tax and Public Finance 7 (2000), 641-64.
'Optimal Income Taxation with Quasi-Linear Preferences Revisited,' with Katherine Cuff and Maurice Marchand, Journal of Public Economic Theory 2 (October, 2000), 435-60.
'Redistribution with Unobservable Bequests: A Case for Taxing Capital Income,' with Maurice Marchand and Pierre Pestieau, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 102 (2, 2000), 253-67.
'Le role de la theorie de l'optimum du second rang en economie publique,' L'Actualite Economique 75 (1-3, 1999), 29-65.
'Contemporary Issues in Empirical Public Finance,' with Baldev Raj, Empirical Economics 24 (November, 1999), 563-69.
'Country Size and the Voluntary Provision of International Public Goods,' with Masayoshi Hayashi, European Journal of Political Economy 15 (November, 1999), 619-38.
'The Provision of Public Services by Government Funded Decentralized Agencies,' with Isao Horiba and Raghbendra Jha, Public Choice 100 (September, 1999), 157-84.
'Monitoring Job Search as an Instrument for Targeting Transfers,' with Katherine Cuff, International Tax and Public Finance 6 (August, 1999), 317-37.
'Information Acquisition and Government Intervention in Credit Markets,' with Motohiro Sato, Journal of Public Economic Theory 1 (July, 1999), 283-308.
'Agency and the Design of Welfare Systems,' with Nicolas Marceau and Motohiro Sato, Journal of Public Economics 73 (July, 1999), 1-30.
'Evasion and Time Consistency in the Taxation of Capital Income,' with Michael Keen, International Economic Review 39 (May, 1998), 461-76.
'Subsidies Versus Public Provision of Private Goods as Instruments for Redistribution,' with Maurice Marchand and Motohiro Sato, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 100 (September, 1998), 545-64.
'The Consequences of Overlapping Tax Bases for Redistribution and Public Spending in a Federation,' with Maurice Marchand and Marianne Vigneault, Journal of Public Economics 68 (June, 1998), 453-78.
'Entrepreneurship, Asymmetric Information, and Unemployment,' with Maurice Marchand, Nicolas Marceau and Marianne Vigneault, International Tax and Public Finance 5 (July, 1998), 307-27.
'The Mirrlees Approach to the Theory of Economic Policy,' International Tax and Public Finance 5 (February, 1998), 67-81.
'Public Economics and the Theory of Public Policy,' Canadian Journal of Economics 30 (November, 1997), 753-72.

Review and Festschrift Articles

'Fiscal Priorities for Canada: Building on the Legacy of David Dodge,' in A Festschrift in Honour of David Dodge's Contributions to Canadian Public Policy (Ottawa: Bank of Canada, 2009), 109-30.
'Canada,' in Anwar Shah (ed.), The Practice of Fiscal Federalism: Comparative Perspectives (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007), 98-124.
'Design of Assistance Programs to Address Real Income Volatility,' with Katherine Cuff, and Nicolas Marceau in Dean Jolliffe and James P. Ziliak (eds.), Income Volatility and Food Assistance in the United States (Kalamazoo, Michigan: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2008), 217-58.
'Fiscal Equalization: The Canadian Experience,' in Nuria Bosch and Jose Maria Duran (eds.), Fiscal Federalism and Political Decentralization: Lessons from Spain, Germany and Canada (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2008), 109-36.
'Evaluating Public Pensions,' with Katherine Cuff, in Anwar Shah (Ed.), Public Expenditure Analysis (Washington: The World Bank, 2005), 69-133.
'Intergovernmental Redistributive Transfers: Efficiency and Equity,' in Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio (eds.), Handbook of Fiscal Federalism (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2006), 355-80.
'Grants in a Federal Economy: A Conceptual Perspective,' in Robin Boadway and Anwar Shah (eds.), Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers: Principles and Practice (Washington: The World Bank, 2007), 55-74.
'Public Economics and Start-up Entrepreneurs,' with Jean-Francois Tremblay, in Vesa Kanniainen and Christian Keuschnigg (eds.), Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Public Policy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005), 181-219.[pdf format].
'Indirect Taxation and Redistribution: The Scope of the Atkinson-Stiglitz Theorem,' with Pierre Pestieau, in Richard Arnott, Bruce Greenwald, Ravi Kanbur and Barry Nalebuff (eds.), Economics for an Imperfect World: Essays in Honor of Joseph E. Stiglitz (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2003), 387-403[pdf format].
'Social Insurance and Redistribution,' with Manuel Leite-Monteiro, Maurice Marchand and Pierre Pestieau, in Sijbren Cnossen and Hans-Werner Sinn (eds.), Public Finance and Public Policy in the New Century in celebration of Richard A. Musgrave's 90th birthday and the tenth anniversary of CES (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 333-58[pdf format].
'Optimal Redistribution and Needs,' with Pierre Pestieau, in Michael Ahlheim, Heinz-Dieter Wenzel and Wolfgang Weigard (eds.), Steuerpolitik - Von der Theorie zur Praxis, Festschrift fur Manfred Rose (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2003), 1-14.
'The Role of Public Choice Considerations in Normative Public Economics,' in Stanley L. Winer and Hirofumi Shibata (eds.), The Role of Political Economy in the Theory and Practice of Public Finance (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2002), 47-68. [pdf format].
'Financing Confederation Revisited: The Economic State of the Federation,' in Patrick Grady and Andrew Sharpe (eds), The State of Economics in Canada: Festschrift in Honour of David Slater (Kingston: John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy, 2001), 37-56.
'Redistribution,' with Michael Keen, in Anthony Atkinson and Francois Bourguignon (eds), Handbook of Income Distribution (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2000), 677-789.
'Recent Developments in the Economics of Federalism,' in Harvey Lazar (ed.), Canada: The State of the Federation 1999-2000: Toward a New Mission Statement for Canadian Fiscal Federalism (Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, 2000), 41-78.

Policy Papers

'Natural Resource Shocks and the Federal System: Boon or Curse?,' in John R. Allan, Thomas J. Courchene and Christian Leuprecht (eds.), Canada: The State of the Federation 2006/07, Transitions: Fiscal and Political Federalism in an Era of Change (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009), 107-30. [pdf format].
'The Budget and Tax Reform: A Lost Opportunity?,' in Charles M. Beach, Michael Smart and Thomas A. Wilson (eds.), The 2006 Federal Budget: Rethinking Fiscal Priorities (Kingston: John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy, 2007), 55-71.
'Evaluating the Equalization Program,' prepared for the Expert Panel on Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing, Ottawa, 2005; and 'Addendum to Evaluating the Equalization Program: The Choice of the Standard in the RTS'[pdf format].
How Well is the Equalization System Reducing Fiscal Disparities?[pdf format].
'What do we Get for Public Indebtedness?', in Christopher Ragan and William Watson (eds.), Is the Debt War Over? Dispatches from Canada's Fiscal Frontline (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2004), 133-60.
Should the Canadian Federation be Rebalanced: A Memo for Paul Martin, University of Windsor Faculty of Science Seminar Series, November, 2003[pdf format]
Federal-Provincial Relations and Health Care: Restructuring the Partnership, with Keith Banting, David Cameron, Harvey Lazar and France St-Hilaire (Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, Nov. 2002), 31 pp.
'The Imperative of Fiscal Sharing Transfers', International Social Science Journal 53 (March, 2001), 103-10.
'Fiscal Federalism Dimensions of Tax Reform in Developing Countries,' with Sandra Roberts and Anwar Shah, in Guillermo Perry, John Whalley and Gary McMahon (eds.), Fiscal Reform and Structural Change in Developing Countries (London: Macmillan, 2000), 171-200.
'Retain Targeting, but Make Credits Refundable,' Policy Options 20 (December, 1999), 18-19.
'Personal Income Tax Reform in a Broader Context,' with Harry Kitchen Canadian Tax Journal 47 (3, 1999), 566-602.
'State Taxes and Federal Revenue Sharing: The Canadian Experience and Lessons for Australia,' in Neil A. Warren (ed.), State Taxation: Repeal, Reform or Resignation (Sydney: Australian Tax Research Foundation, 1999), 195-232.
'Delivering the Social Union: Some Thoughts on the Federal Role,' Policy Options 19 (November, 1998), 37-40.
'Reforming Social Policy: Can the Federal Government Deliver?,' in Peter Nemetz (ed.), The Vancouver Institute: An Experiment in Public Education (Vancouver: JBA Press, UBC, 1998), 620-49.
'The Economic Rationale for Integration,' in Business Tax Reform, Corporate Tax Management Conference 1998 (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1998), 21:1-21:26.
'Tax Assignment in the Canadian Federal System,' in Neil A. Warren (ed.), Reshaping Fiscal Federalism in Australia (Sydney, Australia: Australian Tax Research Foundation, 1997), 61-90.
'Economic Theory Dictates a Rethinking of Policy,' Policy Options 18 (July, 1997), 12-16.
'The Folly of Decentralizing the Canadian Federation,' Dalhousie Review 75 (3, 1996), 313-49.
'The Interaction of Federal and Provincial Taxes on Businesses,' with Marianne Vigneault, Technical Committee on Business Taxation, Working Paper 96-11, Department of Finance, Ottawa, Dec. 1996, 29 pp.

Other Papers

'National Taxation, Fiscal Federalism and Global Taxation,' in A.B. Atkinson (ed.), New Sources of Development Finance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 210-37.
'The Vertical Fiscal Gap: Conceptions and Misconceptions,' in Harvey Lazar (ed.), Canadian Fiscal Arrangements: What Works, What Might Work Better (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's Press, 2005), 51-80.
'The Rae Report and the Public Finance of Postsecondary Education,' in Charles M. Beach (ed.), A Challenge for Higher Education in Ontario (Kingston: John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy, 2005), 73-95.
'Canada: Emerging Issues in a Decentralized Federation,' in Raoul Blindenbacher and Abigail Ostein Karos (eds.), Dialogues on the Practice of Fiscal Federalism: Comparative Perspectives (Ottawa: Forum of Federations, 2006), 9-11.
'A Search Model of Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Unemployment,' with Oana Secrieru and Marianne Vigneault in Greg N. Gregoriou, Maher Kooli and R. Kraussl (eds.), Venture Capital in Europe (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006), 171-84.