Professor Robert Clark joined the Department of Economics, University of Toronto on 1 January, 2026. Formerly of Queen’s University, Professor Clark chose to join the department for the opportunity to collaborate with its strong community of economists working in industrial organization (I/O).
“I was very excited to join the group here. U of T is a great university, and the department is the best in the country,” Clark said. In my field, we’re particularly strong, so I was excited to join the IO group here.”
Clark’s splits his research work between antitrust issues and market competition in the financial sector. His recent work spans topics that are rooted in the examination of Canadian productivity issues and firm collusion in consumer spending.
“I’ve done a lot of work over the years on price‑fixing in retail gasoline, and we were curious whether that might have some impact on the allocation of production,” he explained. “My current paper looks at whether collusion affects the allocation of sales to more or less productive firms and therefore, might have an impact on our productivity growth.”
In his position, Professor Clark will be teaching both undergraduate and graduate students starting with ECO380, Markets, Competition and Strategy. The course covers how markets function, as well as the behaviour of firms within those markets. Issues in focus include strategic relationships between organizations, including competitive relationships between firms in the same market, and cooperative relationships between a firm and its suppliers and distributors.
“I haven’t taught undergrads in a while, so it’s kind of fun to get back to teaching them,” Clark said. “They’re curious and excited students.”
To do well in his course, Clark advises his students to go to class and work hard.
“It’s pretty simple,” he said. “That’s how you do well in life, period.”
Return to the Department of Economics website.
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