I obtained my Ph.D. in Economic History at the University of Toronto in 1992. I have been employed at the University of Regina since 1990.

The courses I've taught on a regular basis in the recent past are ECON 100 (Introduction to Economic Issues), ECON 202 (Introductory Macroeconomics), ECON 234 (Financial and Monetary Crises), ECON 235 (International Economic Institutions), ECON 280 (Writing for Economists), and ECON 360 (Economics of War).

My dissertation and early publications considered the economics and philosophy of Adam Smith. More recently I have been studying the fiscal and monetary problems that England encountered during the Nine Years War with France (1689-97). I focus in particular on the so-called "Great Recoinage" of 1696, when the English government melted down and recoined most of its silver coin. This was a remarkable decision, given that silver coin was England's principal currency at the time; the recoinage greatly reduced the supply of available money at the very moment when the government was already having difficulty collecting taxes and raising war loans. There was also an intense public debate about whether the recoinage should be accompanied by a 25% increase in the official mint price of silver (which would have meant a correspondingly large drop in the external value of the English pound). My aim has been to understand how the government arrived at the policy decisions that it did. Another recent interest is the South Sea Bubble, one of the earliest and most famous financial crises of the western world. In 1720 the South Sea Company embarked upon a project for converting public debt into Company stock. The project went spectacularly well for a few months but ended very badly after the market price of the Company's stock collapsed. A common interpretation is that the scheme was conceived and executed as a swindle by greedy corporate directors and political insiders. But this would be most unusual, given that the project was developed and carried out in the full light of day in front of the entire nation. I am searching for other possible explanations, paying special attention to the role in the thinking of the project's designers about credit and the flow of public cash.

My publications are as follows:

• "'Fictitious cash': English public finance and paper money, 1689-97". In Christopher Fauske and Ivar McGrath (eds.), Money, power and print: interdisciplinary studies on the British financial revolution (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2008), pp. 70-114
• "Smith on teleology: a reply to Alvey". History of Economics Review 40 (Fall 2004):145-49
• "'The ruine of their Diana': Lowndes, Locke and the bankers." History of Political Economy 36.3 (Fall 2004):533-56.
• "Reading the Wealth of Nations in context: rethinking the canon of mid-18th century British political economy." In Evelyn Forget and Sandra Peart (eds.), Reflections on the classical canon in economics: essays in honor of Samuel Hollander (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 125-147.
• "The role of teleology in Adam Smith's Wealth of nations." History of Economics Review 31 (Winter 2000):14-29.
• "Lucy Barbara (Bradby) Hammond (1873-1961)". In Robert Dimand, Mary Ann Dimand, and Evelyn Forget (eds.), A biographical dictionary of women economists (Aldershot: Elgar, 2000), pp. 204-209.
• "Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)". In Robert Dimand, Mary Ann Dimand, and Evelyn Forget (eds.), A biographical dictionary of women economists (Aldershot: Elgar, 2000), pp. 261-280.
• "The decay of trade: the politics of economic theory in eighteenth-century Britain." Journal of the History of Economic Thought 18 (1996):319-46.
• "Final causes in Adam Smith's Theory of moral sentiments." Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 (1995):275-300. Reprinted in Knud Haakonssen (ed.), Adam Smith (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1998), pp. 139-65.
• "Adam Smith on the morality of the pursuit of fortune." Economics and Philosophy 9 (1993):289-95.

I also authored articles on the "The 1696 Recoinage", "Bank of England founded" and "The South Sea Bubble" in The Literary Encyclopedia, an online reference work for university students and scholars.