We are delighted to announce that Byron G. Spencer, Professor Emeritus of Economics at McMaster University, has been appointed as the first Research Program Director of the CRDCN. The creation of this new position stems from the Network’s commitment in its 2016-2021 grant application Evolving to Meet New Research Data Needs and Policy Priorities to develop policy-relevant research programs. In this new capacity, Byron will initiate, facilitate, and encourage collaboration among academic researchers, policy makers, and data producers. He will work closely with federal and provincial departments and agencies to ensure that these programs of research address high priority policy concerns, and he will create teams of researchers to carry them out. Mike Veall will replace him as Academic Director of the McMaster RDC.
Byron G. Spencer short biography
Byron is Emeritus Professor of Economics at McMaster University, recently retired after 51 years of good and loyal service, and the founding Academic Director of the McMaster RDC. His research in recent years centred around the SEDAP (Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population) Research Program, whose purpose was to gain a better understanding of the likely social and economic consequences of the inevitable aging of the population that will take place in Canada over the next few decades. Byron has published extensively on the impact of population change on the economy, on our social security system, and on both the future need for health care services as the population ages and the ways in which those needs could be met. In 2011, he and Frank Denton were awarded the Vanderkamp Prize for their paper “Age of Pension Eligibility, Gains in Life Expectancy, and Social Policy” and in 2013 he received the Mike McCracken Award for Economic Statistics from the Canadian Economics Association “in recognition of both theoretical and applied contributions to the development of official economic statistics”.
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