Christopher Ragan

Christopher Ragan is the founding director of McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy and has been an economics professor at McGill since 1989. Chris was the chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, which between 2014 and 2019 identified policy options to improve environmental and economic performance in Canada. From 2016 through 2019, he was a member of the federal finance minister’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. During 2010-12 he was the president of the Ottawa Economics Association. From 2010-13, Chris held the David Dodge Chair in Monetary Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute, and for many years was a member of the institute’s Monetary Policy Council. In 2009-10, he served as the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at Finance Canada; in 2004-05 he served as special adviser to the governor of the Bank of Canada. His published research focuses mostly on the conduct of macroeconomic policy. Chris often writes columns for Canadian newspapers and for many years he has been author of a textbook which after 18 editions is still the most widely used economics textbook in Canada. Chris received his BA (Honours) in economics in 1984 from the University of Victoria, his MA in economics from Queen’s University in 1985, and his PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989.