Bio

Merwan Engineer's research spans a number of topics areas. Most recently, he has been working on improving indexes of human development so that they can be useful in development planning. He has also been working on banking models for explaining the 2008/09 financial crisis. An ongoing research program involves simulating the population dynamics of age group tribal societies. The bulk of his earlier work develop theories for explaining why paper money has value. His papers on political economy develop models for constraining despotism.

Dr. Engineer graduated with a BA from the University of British Columbia and a PhD from Queen’s University. He is the undergraduate economics advisor and a member of the Senate Committee on Planning. He is associate editor of the Indian Growth & Development Review, senior fellow of The Remini Centre for Economic Analysis, and research affiliate at the Centre for Studies in Demography and Ecology.

Publications

Development and Demography:

• “Healthy Human Development Indices”, Social Indicators Research, 99, (2010); 61-80. With Nilanjana Roy and Sari Fink
• “The Human Development Index as a Criterion for Optimal Planning” ,  Indian Growth and Development Review, 1(2), (2008) 172-192. With Ian King and Nilanjana Roy
• “Choosing Longevity with Overlapping Generations: To Be or Not to Be in Diamond's Model”, The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics (Contributions): 8(1), Article 6, (2008). With Weichun Chen and Ian King
• “Overlapping Generations Models of Graded Age-Set Societies” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 160, (2004), 454-476. With Linda Welling
• “Human Capital, True Love, and Gender Roles: Is Sex Destiny?”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 40, (1999) 155-178. With Linda Welling         
• “Modeling Social Rules and Experimental History: The Impact of the Sepaade Tradition on the Rendille of Nothern Kenya” (2007). With Eric Roth and Linda Welling
• “An Almost Exact Overlapping Generations Model of Rendille of Northern Kenya” (2006). With Eric Roth and Linda Welling

Money and Finance:

• “A Positive Analysis of Deposit Insurance Provision: Regulatory Competition Among European Union Countries”, mimeo (2009) With Mark Gillis and Paul Schure
• When is Price-Level Targeting a Good Idea?”, Price Stability and the Long-Run Target for Monetary Policy, Bank of Canada (2001), 101-149. With Richard Barnett
• “Bargains, Barter and Fiat Money”, Review of Economic Dynamics, 4, (2001) 188-209. With Shouyong Shi 
•  “Currency Transaction Costs and Competing Currencies”, Journal of International Economics, 52(1) (2000) 
• “Asymmetry, Imperfectly Transferrable Utility, and the Role of Fiat Money in Improving Terms of Trade”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 41 (1) (1998), 153-183, 41 (1) (1998), 153-183. With Shouyong Shi
• “Bargaining-Induced Transactions Demand for Fiat Money” FIGS, Discussion Paper 96-03 University of Victoria (1996). With Shouyong Shi. This version derives the bargaining solution from a strategic game.  
• “Comment on Did Risk Based Capital Allocate Bank Credit and Cause a Credit Crunch in the United States”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 26 (1994), 629-633.
• “Rivalrous Money Supply Among Overlapping Generations”, Canadian Journal of Economics, 27, (1994), 494-504. With Dan Bernhardt
• “Endogenous Transfer Institutions in Overlapping Generations”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 29, (1992), 445-474. With Dan Bernhardt
• “Money, Barter, and the Optimality of Legal Restrictions”, Journal of Political Economy, 99, (1991), 743-773. With Dan Bernhardt
• “Bank Runs and the Suspension of Deposit Convertibility”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 24, (1989), 443-454.

Political Economy:

• “Costly Transfer Institutions and the Core in the Overlapping Generations Model”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 32 (1997), 287-300. With Joan Esteban and Jozsef Sakovics
• “Brennan and Buchanan's Leviathan Models”, Social Science Journal, 27, (1990), 419-433. 
• “Taxes, Public Goods and the Ruling Class: An Exploration of the Territory Between Brennan and Buchanan's Leviathan and Conventional Public Finance”, Public Finance, 44, (1989), 19-30.
• “The Distribution of Income in a Despotic Society”, Public Choice, 54, (1987), 261-276. With Dan Usher

Courses

ECON 305, Money & Banking

ECON 401, Advanced Macroeconomic Theory

ECON 435, Financial Economics

ECON 453, Economic Growth and Business Cycles

ECON 573, Economic Growth

ECON 520, Economic Development

Research Projects

Merwan Engineer's research spans a number of topics areas. Most recently, he has been working on improving indexes of human development so that they can be useful in development planning. He has also been working on banking models for explaining the 2008/09 financial crisis. An ongoing research program involves simulating the population dynamics of age group tribal societies. The bulk of his earlier work develop theories for explaining why paper money has value. His papers on political economy develop models for constraining despotism.