Department of Anthropology, Economics and Political Science
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- ItemIntroduction: Theorizing about provinces as provincial laboratories for policy diffusion and transfer(2021) Boyd, Brendan; Boyd, Brendan; Olive, AndreaCanada's federal system, composed of ten provincial governments and three territories, all with varying economies and political cultures, is often blamed for the country's failure to develop coordinated policy responses to key issues. But in other federal and multi-level governance systems, the ability of multiple governments to test a variety of policy responses has been lauded as an effective way to build local and national policy. Despite high-profile examples of policy diffusion in Canada, there is surprisingly little academic study of policy learning and diffusion among provinces. Featuring cutting edge research, Provincial Policy Laboratories explores the cross-jurisdictional movement of policies among governments in Canada's federal system. The book is comprised of case studies in a range of emerging policy areas, including parentage rights, hydraulic fracturing regulations, species at risk legislation, sales and aviation taxation, and marijuana policy. Throughout, the contributors aim to increase knowledge about this understudied aspect of Canadian federalism and contribute to the practice of intergovernmental policy making across the country.
- ItemA note on teaching economic inequality(2023) Jahangir, JunaidThis note is motivated by rising inequality during the COVID pandemic and by calls from student groups in the aftermath of the financial crisis to address contemporary issues including economic inequality. Three textbook options are reviewed to showcase that they do not provide a comparative look on policies to combat inequality. Moreover, the CORE textbook that has been promoted as an alternative to standard textbooks is fraught with information overload and advanced concepts. It is emphasized that the preponderant academic position is shifting towards seriously addressing and combating economic inequality. Thus, lesson plans based on three video clips and Blanchard and Rodrik (2021) are showcased to address economic inequality. Overall, Disney animation clips sustain student interest, retention, and participation more effectively.
- ItemEasy expectations and racial bias in economics instructor ratings(2023) Jahangir, JunaidThe objective in this paper is to investigate the determinants of Economics instructor ratings in two universities in Edmonton based on the data available from the Rate My Professors (RMP) website. Based on random effects and multi-level regression analysis, it is found that instructor ratings are predominantly driven by difficulty level and grades received by students. Additionally, ethnic instructors receive significantly lower ratings, which is explained less by accent and more by race. If the reported difficulty level of a course and the grade received by a student capture “easy expectations” on the part of students in the RMP data, and if instructor ratings are driven by a combination of such "easy expectations" and racial bias on the part of students, then the case for using average instructor ratings for annual faculty evaluations is weakened.
- ItemA game-theoretic analysis of Canada’s entry for LNG exports in the Asia-Pacific market(2023) Ghosh, Subhadip; Islam, ShahidulThe import demand for energy resources, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), has been steadily increasing in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia, the Middle East (Qatar), the Russian Federation, and the U.S. are the major players who compete strategically to capture this ever-growing market for LNG. The objective of this paper is to examine the potential for Canada’s entry into this market as another LNG exporter and what impact that can have on the existing suppliers. Using a game-theoretic LNG export competition model, we explore the conditions under which Canada can make a profitable entry. We also investigate the effect of Canada’s entry on the profitability of the four incumbent exporters. Employing a multi-leader Stackelberg model, we found that Canada’s entry could be a Pareto superior outcome under certain conditions because it benefits all competing firms and consumers. Further, Canada’s entry into the LNG export market always helps the low-cost incumbent firms by increasing their output and profit. However, the high-cost incumbent firms’ output falls, while their profit may increase or decrease depending on the unit cost and market size parameters. With differential export costs between Canada and the U.S., the latter has an incentive to act strategically to affect the entrance of the former.
- ItemHomosexuality: the emerging new battleground in Islam(2018) Jahangir, Junaid; Abdullatif, HusseinAs in the case of Jews and Christians, the topic of homosexuality is not easy for Muslims. Amongst various Christian denominations, it has led to rifts within congregations. The conversation in Christian and Jewish circles in North America has happened in the context of the LGBTQ and civil rights movements over several decades. However, the conversation in Islam, specifically in the North American context, is relatively new. In Muslim countries, homosexuality has conventionally been viewed as a behavioural trait in the context of pederasty and aggressive desire in gender-segregated societies. This, however, is being challenged by a growing number of Muslim youth, especially in the West, who do not wish to perpetuate a behavioural paradigm, in which one marries to keep face and have sexual encounters with members of the same gender on the side. Muslim LGBTQ groups and individuals have increasingly become socially and politically visible as technology and media have allowed them to network and share resources.