Frances Woolley

Frances Woolley is a professor of economics at Carleton University, Canada, and has been teaching there since 1990. She holds a B.A. from Simon Fraser University, a M.A. from Queen's University, and a Ph.D. from London School of Economics under the supervision of Tony Atkinson. Her research includes fields such as public finance, labour economics, as well as family and public policies. She has served as secretary treasurer and president of the Canadian Economics Association and co-editor of Review of Economics of the Household, on the editorial boards of Feminist Economics and the Journal of Socio-Economics, and as the associate dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs at Carleton University. In describing herself, she says, "I theorize about life" and uses economics to relate to things that happen in everyday life.

Education Woolley received a B.A. (Hon) from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia in 1985. She received a M.A. in economics from Queen's University in Ontario in 1986, and went on to pursue her Ph.D. in economics in London School of Economics (LSE), where she graduated in 1990. At LSE, her thesis was Economic Models of Family Decision Making, with Applications to Intergenerational Justice.

Career

Teaching Woolley started as a visiting lecturer in the department of economics at University of British Columbia from 1989 to 1990. In 1997, she worked as a visiting assistant professor in the department of economics at Simon Fraser University. From 1990 to 1998, she worked in Carleton University as assistant professor, where she later became associate professor from 1998 to 2003 and professor starting 2003. From 2013 to 2016, she also served as the associate dean of curriculum and planning at faculty of public affairs at Carleton University. article by Woolley with Zhiqi Chen. The paper simulates a two-person family in which individuals are utility-maximizing yet interdependent due to social and economic causes. The Cournot-Nash game is used in the paper to first reach the equilibrium as an approach to solve the utility-maximizing problem, and then used as a "threat point in a bargaining game". Overall, the paper examines the issues within the households related to resource allocation, bargaining power, as well as under the influence of public policy.

“Ending Universality: The Case of Child Benefits” Canadian Public Policy, 22(1): 24-39, 1996. (with A. Vermaeten and J. Madill. Principal author, Frances Woolley; secondary author, Judith Madill; research assistance, Arndt Vermaeten.) Woolley won the John Vanderkamp Price for best article published in Canadian Public Policy in 1997 with this article, where she was the principal author with Judith Madill being the secondary author and Arndt Vermaeten being the research assistant.

“Taxing Canadian Families: What’s Fair, What’s Not” Choices vol 6(5) July 2000 with Carole Vincent Woolley won the Outstanding Research Contribution Award, Canadian Policy Research Awards in 2000 as well as the Doug Purvis Memorial Prize due to her work that she created with Carole Vincent. The book looks at household economics and provides analysis on family taxation issues. In particular, the book explores issues including taxation on families taking into account of child care, lower-income families, as well as family arrangement. The book proposes some policy solutions with the intention to solve the problems around these issues mentioned above in the Canadian system.