Western hotbed of economists

By David Parkinson

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Forget the Calgary School. The maverick campus in southern Alberta may still influence policy among Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, but the economists holding the levers at the powerful Bank of Canada are products of the Mustang campus in Southern Ontario.

Last week’s appointment of Carolyn Wilkins to the No. 2 position at the central bank – senior deputy governor – puts yet another Western University economics graduate in the upper echelons of the country’s monetary-policy brain trust, joining Governor Stephen Poloz and deputy governor Timothy Lane. Together, they account for half of the policy-setting Governing Council. The man she succeeds, Tiff Macklem, is another Western economics grad.