Labour Market Economics

Labour Market Economics balances the right theoretical coverage with Canadian policy issues. The text provides students with the tools they need for critical thinking about labour market problems, providing pedagogy that focuses on worked examples, extensive problem material, clear figure captions, and a glossary. Canadian labour issues are discussed within the context of a more general theoretical and empirical framework applicable to the labour problems of most developed countries. This is a Canadian text written by four of the top researchers in Canada in the area of labour economics and industrial organization. To quote a reviewer, "the comparative advantage of Benjamin is that the authors have all been major contributors to the labour market policy debates in Canada and the text is more than a Canadian adaptation of an American text."

Morley Gunderson holds the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Chair in Youth Employment at the University of Toronto, where he is a Professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations (Director from 1985-97) and the Department of Economics. He is also a Research Associate of the Institute of Policy Analysis, the Centre for International Studies, and the Institute for Human Development, Life Course and Aging, all at the University of Toronto, as well as an Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Work and Health. He has a BA in Economics from Queen's University (1967), an MA in Industrial Relations (1969) and a Ph.D. in Economics (1971) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been a Visiting Scholar at various institutions: the International Institute for Labour Research in Geneva, Switzerland (1977/78); the National Bureau of Economic Research at Stanford University (1984/85 and 1991-93); the North America Forum at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford (Summer 1994-96); and the Hoover Institution at Stanford (1998/99). His publications include books on Union-Management Relations in Canada, 4th ed. 2000; Women in the Canadian Labour Market, 1998; Forging Business-Labour Partnerships: The Emergence of Sector Councils in Canada, 1998; Labour Market Economics: Theory, Evidence and Policy in Canada, 4th ed., 1998; Comparable Worth and Gender Discrimination: An International Perspective, 1995; Pay Equity, 1990; Women and Labour Market Poverty, 1990; and Economics of Poverty and Income Distribution, 1983. He has published over 70 articles in academic journals and over 70 chapters in edited volumes on various topics: gender discrimination and comparable worth; the ageing workforce, pensions and mandatory retirement; youth employment; public sector wage determination; the determinants and impact of immigration; the causes and consequences of strikes; childcare arrangements and labour market behaviour; workers' compensation and reasonable accommodation; labour market adjustment and training; volunteer labour supply and the impact of trade liberalisation and globalisation on labour markets, labour policy, labour standards, industrial relations, human resource management and workplace practices. Currently, Professor Gunderson is on the editorial board of the Journal of Labor Research and the International Journal of Manpower, and he is co-editor of the Labour Arbitration Yearbook. He has been a member of the Executive Board of the Industrial Relations Research Association and an advisor/consultant to various organizations: Labour Canada; Ontario Ministry of Labour; Statistics Canada; Abella Commission on Employment Equity; Canadian Human Rights Commission; Ontario Task Forces on Hours of Work and Overtime and on Mandatory Retirement; Ontario Pay Equity Commission; BC Task Force on Employment and Training; Ontario Workers' Compensation Board; Canadian Policy Research Network; Federal Task Force on Working Time and the Distribution of Work; Ontario Royal Commission on Workers' Compensation; Human Resources Development Canada; BC Royal Commission on Workers’ Compensation; the North America Forum at Stanford; the International Labour Organisation and the Harvard Institute for International Development.

W. Craig Riddell is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of British Columbia and an Associate of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. His research interests are in labour economics, labour relations and public policy. Current research is focused on unemployment and labour market dynamics, the role of human capital in economic growth, experimental and non-experimental approaches to the evaluation of social programs, unionization and collective bargaining, gender differences in labour market behavior and outcomes, unemployment insurance and social assistance, and education and training. Recent publications include: "Qualifying for Unemployment Insurance: An Empirical Analysis" Economic Journal, 1997 (with David Green); “Wages, Skills and Technology in the United States and Canada” in E. Helpman (ed.) General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth, MIT Press, 1998 (with Kevin Murphy and Paul Romer); “The Measurement of Unemployment: An Empirical Approach” Econometrica 1999 (with Stephen Jones); "Canadian Labour Market Performance in International Perspective" Canadian Journal of Economics 1999. He is also co-author (with Dwayne Benjamin and Morley Gunderson) of Labour Market Economics: Theory, Evidence and Policy in Canada, the leading Canadian labour economics textbook. Professor Riddell is former Head of the Department of Economics at UBC, former Academic Co-Chair of the Canadian Employment Research Forum, and Past-President of the Canadian Economics Association.