The City and the University
Additional Information
The U of C Advantage
The Economics Department at the University of Calgary offers the following advantages to prospective graduate students:1. Our graduates have considerable success finding employment related to their training. Not only does Calgary have one of the fastest growing economies in Canada, it is now second only to Toronto in terms of the number of top 500 companies with their headquarters in our city. Many of these companies, plus the numerous federal and provincial agencies in Calgary, employ professional economists. (The Calgary branch of the Canadian Association of Business Economists is one of the most active in the country a very high percentage of its members are graduates of the University of Calgary.
2. We are a young and very dynamic department. All of our faculty members have a strong commitment to research and teaching – particularly at the graduate level.
3. The department is now particularly strong in four research areas: health economics, resource economics, industrial organisation/regulation, and public economics
a. Health Economics – the Department has three health economists. Two economists are partially funded by the Institute of Health Economics. We offer a specialisation in health economics at the M.A. level.
b. Resource Economics – because of the importance of the petroleum and agriculture industries to our economy, the Department of Economics at the University of Calgary has a concentration of resource economists. Four members of our faculty conduct research in petroleum economics, three (one of whom is adjunct) in environmental economics, and one in the economics of fisheries. We are part of a consortium of five Canadian and six European universities that offer exchange programs for graduate students wishing to take some of their natural resource economics courses abroad.
c. Industrial Organisation/Regulation – four faculty members specialise in research and teaching in the area of industrial organisation. Our proximity to major electrical, oil, and natural gas producing industries has led to the development of a research concentration in the economics of regulation. This has led to the establishment of two research centres with which the department has strong associations: the Centre for Regulatory Affairs and the Van Horne Institute for International Transportation and Regulatory Affairs.
d. Public Economics – four faculty members conduct research in public finance and related disciplines. Areas of recent research include studies of deficit reduction, tax reform, and models of political economy. These researchers are regular participants in conferences hosted by the Institute for Public Economics, the C.D. Howe Institute, the John Duetsch Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Institute for Policy Analysis. The Institute for Public Economics has recently become associated with the department. <!--[endif]-->
The facilities and financial assistance provided for graduate research rank among the best available anywhere. The MacKimmie Library and Management Resource Centre contain about 1.4 million bound volumes, 1.8 million units of microform and 240,000 volumes of government publications, all of which can be searched electronically. The Library and Resource Centre maintains the mainstream journals, books and government documents central to research in economics.
The computing facilities include a network of IBM RISC 6000 computers using the AIX (UNIX-based) operating system. These mainframes can be accessed from micro computers provided for Economics graduate students and located within the department. Graduate students have access to several micro computer labs containing Macintosh and IBM compatible personal computers, a variety of laser printers and a wide range of software. The software of interest to economics graduate students includes TSP, SHAZAM, RATS, a large number of word processing, spreadsheet and graphics packages.
We endeavour to provide office work space on the same floor as the Economics faculty, thus encouraging interaction among themselves and with faculty members. This interaction is further encouraged through workshops, presentations by visiting speakers, and social gatherings.
The City and the University
The University campus is located in the northwest corner of Calgary, a city of approximately 1 million people situated in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains. Calgary has all of the cultural amenities normally found in a large metropolis. The nearby mountain and resort areas also provide opportunities for activities such as skiing, hiking, mountaineering and sailing. A wide variety of collegiate and professional sports, along with an abundance of facilities for tennis, swimming, track and field, squash, racquetball, hockey, etc., provide ample outlet for the sports enthusiast.
The University is very modern and is easily accessed by auto, bus or light rail transit (LRT). Ample student parking is available on campus and at nearby McMahon Stadium for a nominal fee. There are numerous bus stops on campus and an LRT station on the east perimeter of campus. The University is also connected to an extensive bicycle path system that reaches most areas of the city.
Enrolment at The University of Calgary is about 22,000 students with about 2200 students registered in graduate study. Graduate enrolment in economics averages about 50 students.
There are a variety of on-campus facilities for students including married and single student housing, a large student union complex with cafeterias, shops, pubs, theatres and a variety of sports facilities including the Olympic Skating Oval. The University of Calgary has the finest combined athletic facilities in Canada.
Additional Information
This page provides general information to prospective applicants for graduate study in Economics at The University of Calgary. It does not represent the complete and official regulations governing Graduate Study at The University of Calgary. These regulations can be found in the Faculty of Graduate Studies Calendar. Copies can be obtained from:
Faculty of Graduate Studies
The University of Calgary
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary Alberta Canada T2N 1N4