IMFG invites applications for two one-year graduate fellowships in municipal finance and governance for the 2017-2018 academic year. The fellowships will begin on September 1, 2017 and each offer $5,000 in financial support.
Find out more »

The Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG), within the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, invites applications for a one-year IMFG Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Municipal Finance and Governance. Research should be pertinent to IMFG’s focus on the finance and governance issues faced by large cities and city-regions in Canada and around the world.
Find out more »

Toronto is known for having been a prosperous and successful city in the decades after the Second World War, and the postwar period has come to be seen as something of a Golden Age for the city. What role did Toronto’s postwar municipal finances play in making the city the success that it was?
Find out more »

Participatory budgeting is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. Several Canadian cities are experimenting with participatory budgeting. This Forum paper describes participatory budgeting efforts in Toronto and elsewhere.
Find out more »

The 21st century has seen a renewed interest internationally in national urban policies. This paper draws on the experience of countries that have explicitly pursued national urban policies to solve complex and interrelated urban challenges.
Find out more »

The City of Toronto implemented a land transfer tax on real estate transactions in February 2008. This study explores the impact of the tax on housing sales in the City of Toronto and the rest of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Find out more »

Local governments need to make significant financial investments, and must raise revenues through taxes, user fees, and possibly new revenue tools. But before they can take these actions, they have to build trust to convince their residents that new revenues are needed and will be spent wisely.
Find out more »

Canadian cities have long called for access to more tax revenues. This paper argues that additional taxes are appropriate for major cities, describes the advantages and disadvantages of potential new taxes, and estimates the revenue from a city income tax, a city sales tax, and a city fuel tax for eight Canadian cities.
Find out more »