Curriculum vitae
Short
version (PDF)
Faculty vitae (March,
1998, PDF)
Rod Dobell was born in Vancouver, B.C., and took B.A. and M.A.
degrees at the University of British Columbia (in economics and
mathematics) before going on to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) for his PhD in economics. After a five-year appointment
as Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University, he returned
to Canada as Associate Professor of Mathematics and Political Economy,
and subsequently Professor of Political Economy, at the University
of Toronto. There he served as a member of the founding faculty
of the Institute for Policy Analysis, directed a research project
which analyzed and recommended a national contingent repayment
student financial assistance scheme for financing of post-secondary
education, and subsequently developed some of the first working
models for longitudinal microsimulation methods in the analysis
of social policy. Since then he has alternated between academic
work and policy applications, with six years in the Government
of Canada (including appointments as special adviser to the Deputy
Minister of Finance for long-range economic planning, and Deputy
Secretary (Planning) in the Treasury Board Secretariat) followed
by two years (1976-78) at OECD as Director of the General Economics
Branch, seven years as Director of the School of Public Administration
at the University of Victoria, and subsequently a seven-year term
as President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, before
returning to the University of Victoria in 1991 to take up the
first appointment to the Francis G. Winspear Chair for Research
in Public Policy, for a six-year term to 1997.
In the early eighties he also served as Director of Research for
Parliamentary Task Forces on Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements
(the Breau Task Force) and on Pension Reform (the Frith Task Force).
He was the founding President for NAMI-Canada, the Canadian section
of the North American Institute, exploring the emerging structures
of a North American community. In 1992 he was awarded the Governor-General's
Canada 125 medal for service to the country. He was a founding
member of the Board of the tri-national Environmental Education
and Training Institute of North America and presently serves also
as a member of the Research Committee for the Institute of Public
Administration of Canada. From 1995-99 he served on an inter-disciplinary
Panel on Marine Resources for the Canadian Global Change Program
of the Royal Society of Canada. He has been a member of the National
Statistics Council, at the invitation of the Minister Responsible
for Statistics Canada, since 1989.
In the course of this academic career interspersed with extensive
field trips, Professor Dobell developed his specific research interests
in the philosophy and processes of public administration and policy
formation, and the way in which collective decisions are influenced
both by changing views of scientific evidence and democracy, and
changing structures for consultation and public participation.
Social capital, social cohesion and social learning in the management
of global environmental risks and in the stewardship of cultural
and natural capital are subjects at the centre of his current work.
Selected Executive Positions:
- Chair, Scientific Committee for the Human Dimensions of Global
Change, Canadian Global Change Program, Royal Society of Canada,
1989-91
- Member, National Statistics Council, 1989 - present
- President, North American Institute (Canada), 1991-99
- Member,
Research Committee, Institute of Public Administration of
Canada, 1995 -
- Founding Board, Environmental Education and Training Institute
of North America
- Member, Royal Society of Canada/Canadian Global Change Program,
Expert Panel on Global Change and Canadian Marine Fisheries,
1995-99
Selected
Publications:
(with E. Burmeister) Mathematical Theories of Economic Growth,
MacMillan, 1970. Reprinted 1993 by Gregg Revivals Series, Classics
in Economic Theory.
"
Organizing Government for Sustainable Development: Recent Canadian
Experience", Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration, Vol.
69, May 1992, pp. 152-161.
Rodney Dobell and Michael Neufeld (eds), Transborder Citizens:
Networks and New Institutions in North America, Lantzville, Oolichan
Books, 1994. "
Environmental Degradation and the Religion of the Market" in
Coward, Harold (ed), Population and the Environment: Resource Consumption,
Religions, and Ethics, SUNY Press, 1995.
"
Complexity, Connectedness and Civil Purpose: Public Administration
in the Congested Global Village", Canadian Public Administration,
Vol. 40, No. 2 (Summer 1997) 346-370.
(with Darcy Mitchell) "Resource Management and Sustainability
in British Columbia", Public Administration in Canada, Jacques
Bourgault, Cynthia Williams and Maurice Demers (eds.) IIAS, Quebec
City, 1997.
(with Luc Bernier) "Citizen-centered governance: Implications
for inter-governmental Canada" in Alternative Service Delivery.
Robin Ford and David Zussman (eds.). IPAC-KPMG, 1997.
"
Compliance and Constraint: Economic Instruments in Context",
in Chris Tollefson (ed) The Wealth of Forests: Markets, Regulation
and Sustainable Forestry. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998.
"
Implementing Principles for Sustainable Fisheries", in Randall
Peterman et al (eds) Canadian Marine Fisheries in a Changing and
Uncertain World. National Research Council: NRC Press, 1999.
"
Implementation," in Social Learning in Management of Global
Atmospheric Risks, Clark, W.C., Jaeger, Jill and van Eijndhoven,
J. (eds), MIT Press, forthcoming, 2001.
"
Social Learning and Social Capital in a Full World", OECD/HRDC
Symposium on The Role of Human and Social Capital in Economic Growth
and Sustained Well-being, March, 2000. Forthcoming in the Symposium
Proceedings edited by John Helliwell, to be published by OECD.
(See also "Formation of Social Capital and Institutions for
Sustainability" at www.sdri.ubc.ca) Date: November 30, 2000
Faculty: Human and Social Development
Department: School of Public Administration
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