This project investigates the future financial liabilities associated with inactive and orphaned oil and gas wells in Alberta. Alberta faces potentially tens of billions of dollars in well abandonment, reclamation, and environmental cleanup obligations, raising concerns about the adequacy of existing liability management programs and the potential transfer of costs to taxpayers.
The study will estimate the probability that inactive wells become orphaned using econometric techniques such as survival analysis and discrete-choice models. These risk estimates will then be combined with well-specific abandonment and reclamation cost data obtained from the Orphan Well Association (OWA), the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), and other publicly available sources. By integrating orphaning probabilities with closure costs, the project will generate risk-weighted estimates of Alberta’s future environmental liabilities.
The analysis will also examine how liabilities are distributed across well types, geographic regions, and operator characteristics. The findings will contribute to policy discussions regarding financial assurance requirements, orphan well levies, and Alberta’s broader Liability Management Framework. The project offers students an opportunity to work with real-world policy issues at the intersection of environmental economics, energy economics, and public policy while gaining experience in applied econometric research and large-scale data analysis.
Research area, student roles & skills
Research area: My research focuses on applied environmental and resource economics, with particular emphasis on energy, natural resources, agriculture, environmental liability, and regulatory policy. I examine how firms respond to environmental regulations, financial assurance requirements, and market incentives using advanced econometric methods and large administrative datasets. Much of my work investigates inactive and orphaned oil and gas wells, well closure liabilities, and the effectiveness of regulatory frameworks in managing environmental risks. My research has been published in journals such as The Energy Journal, Energy Economics, The Financial Review, Applied Economics, and World Development.
Student roles: The student will assist with several stages of the research project. Responsibilities will include conducting a comprehensive literature review on orphan wells, environmental liabilities, and energy regulation; collecting and organizing secondary data from the OWA, AER, and other sources; cleaning and managing datasets using using Excel or STATA; conducting preliminary descriptive and statistical analyses; assisting in the development and implementation of empirical methodologies; creating summaries of results; and contributing to the preparation of research reports. The student will work closely with the supervisor and gain hands-on experience in applied economic research, policy analysis, and empirical data analysis.
Skills required: The ideal student will have a background in Economics and/or Applied Economics, Environmental Economics, Agricultural Economics, Resource Economics, or a related field. Preference will be given to students who have completed coursework in Econometrics, Advanced/Intermediate Microeconomics, and/or Environmental Economics.
Students should have experience working with quantitative data and statistical software, particularly STATA. Familiarity with data management, regression analysis, and panel data methods is desirable but not required. Strong analytical, research, writing, and communication skills are essential. Experience conducting literature reviews and working with large administrative datasets will be considered an asset.
Prevention plays a central role in insurance economics. It refers to actions that reduce either the probability of a loss or its severity, such as investments in safety, prudent behavior, climate-risk adaptation, preventive health measures, or contractual incentives offered by insurers.
The goal of this internship will be to conduct a literature review on the economic modeling of prevention in insurance markets. The work will focus on how theoretical models account for policyholders’ prevention choices, information asymmetries, moral hazard, contract pricing, and the incentives designed by insurers or public authorities.
The intern will first identify the main families of models in insurance economics, including observable or unobservable prevention effort, primary and secondary prevention, self-insurance, self-protection, incentive contracts, deductibles, bonus-malus systems, and subsidy policies. Particular attention may be given to recent extensions related to climate, health, or systemic risks, for which prevention has become a major economic issue.
The internship will mainly consist of reading, organizing, and synthesizing the academic literature in order to highlight the central assumptions, main results, limitations of existing models, and open research questions. The final output may take the form of a structured survey note, accompanied by an annotated bibliography.
This internship is intended for a student interested in insurance economics, applied microeconomics, and risk modeling. Strong skills in reading academic articles in English are expected.
Research area, student roles & skills
Research area: As described on my page https://freakonometrics.github.io/, the themes addressed in the work of students under my supervision are primarily focused on understanding and modeling risks, and actuarial models (or predictive models, more generally). Applications range from modeling climate risks to analyzing discrimination and equity. The models are primarily mathematical and require a solid foundation in mathematics, statistics, game theory, probability, or quantitative economics.
Student roles: The student will have the option to: (1) conduct a scientific literature review on a specific field (2) work on a theoretical paper related to those issues
Skills required: As mentioned previously, the student will need to have a strong foundation in economics, econometrics, mathematics, statistics, game theory, probability, or programming. The direction of the topic will be tailored to take into account the student's strengths. The student must be able to read scientific literature in English.
3. Recession and Unemployment in Canada: Evidence from Provincial Data
Supervisor: Libo Xu
University: Lakehead University (Thunder Bay campus)
This research is motivated by the recent slowdown in the Canadian economy, driven by shifts in the global economic environment and ongoing trade frictions. These developments have led to job losses and a weakening of labor markets across Canada, as reflected in rising unemployment rates. Such trends signal economic stagnation and raise concerns about potential recessions.
Given Canada’s vast size and the diversity of its provincial economies, this study aims to analyze unemployment rates and recessions at the provincial level to better understand regional economic dynamics. For instance, some provinces may experience labor market slowdowns and recessions earlier in response to economic shocks such as trade frictions and other global events. These early responses can transmit the effects of shocks to other provinces, resulting in economic fluctuations across the country.
Therefore, the research question is “what are the transmissions among Canadian provinces in terms of labor markets and recessions at the provincial level?” The study will contribute to the understanding of economic connections among Canadian provinces and offer important results when forecasting provincial labor markets and economies
.
When quantifying provincial labor markets, the study will take advantage of recent advances in the literature. It will follow the Sahm rule recession indicator in Sahm (2019) to measure the labor market of each province in Canada. The Sahm rule recession indicator tracks the 3-month moving average of the unemployment rate and its low during the prior 12 months. Moreover, it will indicate a recession if the 3-month moving average is higher than its low during the prior 12 months by 0.5 or more. The Sahm rule has become a popular measure that is studied in the related literature.
Overall, the study will conduct an econometric analysis with our own constructed Sahm rule indicators of Canadian provinces for the research question.
Research area, student roles & skills
Research area: My primary research interests lie in the areas of macroeconomics and financial economics. I consider myself an applied macroeconomist with empirical interests related to monetary policy, business cycles, and financial markets.
Student roles: The student will become familiar with data sources for various economic variables as part of the project. The student is expected to collect data following the guidance of the supervisor and show the basic statistical results and explain their findings to the supervisor. In the end, the student will prepare a short writing to summarize the results.
Additional training will be offered to the student by the supervisor, if necessary. Therefore, the student should be prepared to learn and exercise new skills and economic analysis based on statistical software.
The supervisor will look for co-authorship for the student based on original inputs and contribution to the final draft of the paper.
Skills required: The applicant should have finished the second year of training in a program in Economics or a related major. Moreover, the applicant knows basic quantitative methods for time-series analysis and can work with statistical software.
4. The Impact of Technological Innovation on the Adoption of Energy Efficiency Measures by Firms
Improving energy efficiency is a key strategy for reducing production costs, enhancing business competitiveness, and supporting the transition toward a low-carbon economy. Despite the well-documented benefits of energy-efficient practices, their adoption remains uneven across firms. Existing research suggests that innovation capabilities play a critical role in enabling organizations to implement technologies and operational practices that improve energy performance.
This project seeks to examine the influence of technological innovation on the adoption of energy efficiency measures by firms. The analysis will focus on three dimensions of innovation: research and development (R&D) activities, process innovation, and product innovation. Preliminary descriptive evidence indicates a strong and statistically significant association between innovation and the adoption of energy efficiency measures. Firms engaged in R&D activities or process innovation exhibit substantially higher adoption rates than firms that do not undertake such innovative activities.
To identify the independent contribution of each innovation dimension, the project will employ multivariate econometric models controlling for firm-specific characteristics that may simultaneously affect innovation and energy-efficiency adoption, including firm size, environmental certifications, export orientation, and technological intensity. The results will provide robust evidence on the mechanisms through which innovation supports energy efficiency and will inform policymakers and industry stakeholders seeking to design effective programs that accelerate sustainable industrial transformation and energy transition objectives.
Research area, student roles & skills
Research area: My specialized research and teaching fields include Benefits-Cost Analysis, Environmental Economics and Natural Resources, Quantitative Analysis, Applied Econometrics, Microeconomic Theory, Industrial Organization, and Contract Theory. My work focuses on applying economic theory and quantitative methods to evaluate policy impacts, optimize resource allocation, and analyze market structures and strategic interactions.
Student roles: The student will contribute to all stages of the research project examining the relationship between technological innovation and the adoption of energy efficiency measures by firms. The student will conduct a literature review on innovation and energy efficiency, prepare and clean firm-level datasets, and perform descriptive statistical analyses. They will assist in estimating econometric models to evaluate the effects of R&D activities, process innovation, and product innovation on energy-efficiency adoption while controlling for firm characteristics. The student will also participate in interpreting results, preparing reports, and presenting findings to academic and industry stakeholders, thereby developing strong analytical, quantitative, and research communication skills.
Skills required: in Economics, Econometrics or statistics, and Mathematics
Technical Skills:
Data Analysis: Proficiency in statistical tools (Stata, R, Python) or GIS software for mapping mineral deposits.
Research Methods: Experience with literature reviews, case studies, and policy analysis.
5. The Tale of Dutch Disease in Not-so-Dutch Economies
Supervisor: Octave Keutiben
University: Université de Moncton
Location: Moncton, New Brunswick
Start date: 2027-05-03 (flexible)
Disciplines: Econometrics, Economics, Public Policy and Administration, Statistics, Mathematics, International Business and Trade, International Studies, History
A number of countries, despite being abundantly blessed with natural resources, have not been able to harness these riches to ensure sustainable growth and shared prosperity. This stylized fact has generated increasing interest among researchers, and substantial academic work has been devoted, over the decades, to explaining the myth of the ‘‘resource curse’’. The literature has predominantly strived to elucidate this seeming paradox of plenty by the Dutch disease mechanism, notably through the dual channel of spending effect (SE) and resource movement effect (RME). The objective of this project is to examine the historical data to verify whether they do indeed confirm SE and RME in a sample of countries often associated with the apparent paradox of plenty.
Research area, student roles & skills
Research area: Environmental, Energy and Resource Economics; Public Finance and Political Economy; Growth and International Economics; Money and Banking.
Student roles: The students involved in this project should carry out the following tasks: * Become familiar with the Dutch disease literature * Review theoretical and empirical models on Dutch disease * Collect economic and political data in a sample of countries endowed with natural resources. * Conduct an exploratory analysis of data * Interpret the results of the selected models * Draft reports
Skills required: A background in mathematics or economics is an asset for this project, although it is not mandatory. Furthermore, the student involved in this project must have strong skills in statistics and econometrics. They must be able to use existing data to construct various indicators relevant to the study. The student must be comfortable with calculations and writing codes with one of the following software: R, STATA, EXCEL, SPSS.
6. Towards a Clean Energy Transition: The Impact of Geopolitical Risk on the Demand and In-Situ Value of Critical Minerals
The global transition toward clean energy technologies increasingly depends on a secure supply of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, and rare earth elements. Africa holds a significant share of these strategic resources, yet their extraction and valuation remain vulnerable to geopolitical tensions that can disrupt international commodity markets. Understanding how geopolitical uncertainty affects the demand and economic value of critical minerals is therefore essential for policymakers, investors, and stakeholders involved in the energy transition.
This project aims to investigate the impact of global geopolitical risk, measured using the Geopolitical Risk Index (GPR) developed by Caldara and Iacoviello (2022), on the demand for critical minerals (proxied by extraction levels) and their in-situ value (measured through scarcity rents) across African countries between 1970 and 2021. Using advanced panel data econometric techniques, the study will estimate both short-run and long-run effects of geopolitical shocks on extraction decisions and resource valuation.
The project will also assess whether geopolitical risk alters the optimal extraction horizon by comparing observed and optimal terminal extraction periods for different critical minerals. The findings will contribute to the literature on natural resource economics and provide evidence-based insights for governments and industry stakeholders seeking to enhance resource governance, supply-chain resilience, and sustainable energy transition strategies.
Research area, student roles & skills
Research area: My specialized research and teaching fields include Benefits-Cost Analysis, Environmental Economics and Natural Resources, Quantitative Analysis, Applied Econometrics, Microeconomic Theory, Industrial Organization, and Contract Theory. My work focuses on applying economic theory and quantitative methods to evaluate policy impacts, optimize resource allocation, and analyze market structures and strategic interactions.
Student roles: Research & Data Collection:
Conduct a comprehensive literature review on critical minerals in Africa, including global demand, supply chains, and policy frameworks.
Gather and analyze geological, economic, and trade data from sources like USGS, World Bank, and African mining reports.
Data Analysis & Mapping:
Use GIS tools (e.g., ArcGIS, QGIS) to map mineral deposits and mining hotspots across Africa.
Apply statistical/econometric methods (if applicable) to assess trends in production, exports, and value addition.
Case Study Development:
Analyze 1–2 country-specific cases (e.g., DRC for cobalt, South Africa for PGMs) to highlight successes/challenges.
Skills required: Academic Background:
in Economics, Geology, Mining Engineering, Environmental Science, Econometrics or statistics.
Knowledge of resource economics, industrial policy, or African development is a plus.
Technical Skills:
Data Analysis: Proficiency in statistical tools (Stata, R, Python) or GIS software for mapping mineral deposits.
Research Methods: Experience with literature reviews, case studies, and policy analysis.