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W. Craig Riddell

University of British Columbia, Canada, and IZA, Germany

I'm pleased to be a part of this project on labor market developments in various countries since 2000. I hope that policymakers and academics alike will find World of Labor a useful way to quickly learn the current state of knowledge about a wide range of issues affecting labor markets around the world

IZA World of Labor role

Author

Current position

Professor Emeritus of Economics, Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, Canada

Research interest

Labor economics, labor relations, public policy, education, skills formation, immigration, unemployment, unemployment insurance, and inequality

Website

https://economics.ubc.ca/faculty-and-staff/w-craig-riddell/

Positions/functions as a policy advisor

Panel Member, Expert Panel on Modern Federal Labour Standards, Government of Canada, 2019; Panel Member, Expert Panel on Older Workers, Government of Canada (2007–2008); Member, Statistics Canada’s Advisory Committee on Labour and Income Statistics (1985–2012); Research Coordinator for Labour Markets and Labour Relations, Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, (1983–1985)

Past positions

Royal Bank Faculty Research Professor, Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia (1986–2016); Academic Director, Canadian Labour Market and Skill Research Network (CLSRN) (2007–2015); Head, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia (1991–1995)

Qualifications

PhD Economics, Queen’s University at Kingston, 1977

Selected publications

  • "Welfare versus work under a negative income tax: Evidence from the Gary, Seattle, Denver and Manitoba income maintenance experiments.” Journal of Labor Economics (Forthcoming) (with C. Riddell).

  • “Interpreting experimental evidence in the presence of post-randomization events: A re-assessment of the self sufficiency project.” Journal of Labor Economics (2020) 873–914 (with C. Riddell).

  • Income Inequality: The Canadian Story. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2016 (edited with D. A. Green and F. St-Hilaire).

  • “The measurement of unemployment: An empirical approach." Econometrica 67 (1999): 147–161 (with S. R. G. Jones).

  • "The empirical foundations of the Phillips Curve: Evidence from Canadian wage contract data." Econometrica 47 (1979): 1–24.

article(s)

  • The labor market in Canada, 2000–2021 Updated

    Covid-19 ended 20 years of stability and good labor market performance, aided in part by a strong resource boom

    W. Craig Riddell, November 2022
    From 2000 to 2019, Canada's economy and labor market performed well. Important in this success was a strong resource boom from the late 1990s to 2014. After the boom the economy and labor market adjusted relatively smoothly, with labor and other resources exiting resource-rich regions and moving elsewhere. Strong growth in major export markets (Asia and the US) aided the adjustment. The Covid-19 downturn resulted in an unprecedented decline in employment, and a steep rise in unemployment and non-participation. Despite the severity of the Covid-19 shock, by December 2021 most key measures of labor market activity had returned to pre-pandemic levels.
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