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Everything Economics at the University of Toronto

2026 Backpacks to Briefcases: Put Your Economics Degree to Work!

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Three figures crossing a bridgeNOTE: Due to the campus closure, tonight’s event is POSTPONED. Please stay tuned for the new date and time.

Are you graduating from the University of Toronto in 2026? If you’re about to finish your undergraduate degree with an economics component, you’ll want to register for Backpacks to Briefcases on 15 January 2026 from 5:30 to 8PM at Max Gluskin House (EconHQ) at 150 St. George Street.

Guests will hear from a panel of 3 alumni and moderator Professor Tyler Paul who will discuss how they put their economics degrees to work in industries like finance, tech, consulting and AI. Register here!

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A Student-Centred Lab Where Economics Comes Alive

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The Khazra Research Lab (K.R.L.) is not a classroom simulation. It is a working research lab where students participate in real projects, real data, real papers, and real seminars. Launched gradually between the summer session of 2025 and the start of the fall semester, the K.R.L. has already brought six students into the heart of applied economics research, where the excitement, and challenges, of working with large, complex datasets is part of everyday life. [Read more…]

Professor Robert McCann Wins CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize

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Portrait of Professor Robert McCann
Professor Robert McCann

The Centre de recherches mathématiques, the Fields Institute, and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) have awarded the 2026 CRM-Fields-PIMs Prize to Professor Robert McCann. McCann is cross appointed to the Departments of Economics and Mathematics at the University of Toronto. The prize recognizes research achievements in the mathematical sciences.

In its comments, the award jury cited research that Professor McCann started to publish in the field of optimal transport, the art of developing tools to find the most efficient way to distribute real or theoretical mass from one place to another. The work has widespread, cross-disciplinary applications.

“Working at the interface of analysis, geometry, physics, and economics, Dr. McCann has continually broadened the reach of optimal transport,” read the jury’s press release. “His analytical framework has become central in economic models of matching and equilibrium, in which optimal transport maps provide the mathematical underpinning for understanding how agents are effectively assigned to contracts or goods. This interplay between pure mathematics and applied modelling exemplifies his versatility and the breadth of his scientific vision.” [Read more…]

Sijie Lin Studies Human Creativity in Prompt Creation with Generative AI

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Portrait of PhD Candidate Sijie Lin
PhD Candidate Sijie Lin Photo: A Macedo

What is the value of human work in a world of generative AI? In her paper, Learning to Prompt: Human Adaptation in Production with Generative AI, Economics PhD candidate Sijie Lin investigated the role human creativity might play to answer that question. Lin investigated how people use Midjourney, an AI image generator, the users of Discord can access to create images based on text prompts. To Lin, the tool provided an interesting setting to conduct research.

“Midjourney allowed me to observe the creative process,” Lin said. “In many previous settings we only observed inputs and outputs, but in this setting, I can see exactly how people interact with AI, going back and forth to come up with the image they want.”

What Lin discovered is that using AI tools to produce quality work that meets specifications requires iteration and human effort.

“It’s not trivial to get what you want from AI,” she explained. “You need to write the right prompts, so the output goes in the direction you want. That judgment is very important and it’s mentally demanding. You can’t just press a button and magically get whatever you want.” [Read more…]

Space and Cyberspace: Investigating Food Delivery Apps and Restaurant Real Estate with Siyuan Liu

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Portrait of PhD candidate Siyuan Liu
PhD candidate Siyuan Liu Photo: A. Macedo

Fewer people are waiting to be seated to dine at their favourite restaurants. Instead, they wait at home for delivery services like Uber Eats and Door Dash to bring them a variety of cooked fare. That doesn’t necessarily mean the eat-in restaurant will become extinct. Spatial economist Siyuan Liu examined how the rise of online food delivery platforms influenced commercial real estate demand.

Her paper, Space and Cyberspace: The Impact of Food Delivery Services on Retail Real Estate, was inspired when subject expertise met a growling stomach.

“I ordered a lot, probably too much, from food delivery platforms. As a Ph.D. student, I really can’t live without them,” Liu explained. “And I’ve always been interested in urban economics and retail real estate. That motivates me to study the interaction between online food delivery platforms and their spatial consequences, or how online and offline interact with each other.” [Read more…]

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