A CIRANO Associate Researcher and Fellow since 2017, Bernard Dafflon is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Fribourg.

Holding a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Fribourg, his research interests are decentralization and federalism, territorial organization of local authorities, local public finance management, public financing of social insurance, public debt and financing of environmental services.

From 1977 to 1990, he was responsible for the department of municipalities of the Canton of Friborg and, as such, has acquired a solid experience in the practice of local public finances.

He has published in French and English several books, including collective works, and has written several articles on public finance and fiscal federalism, as well as numerous case studies and monographs on decentralization and communal management.

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2015, Main Researcher of the theme Territories, Jean-Philippe Meloche is Associate Professor at the École d'urbanisme et d'architecture de paysage of the Université de Montréal. He is also the Director of the École d'urbanisme et d'architecture de paysage of the Université de Montréal.

He is also Researcher at the Ivanhoe Cambridge Observatory of Urban and Real Estate Development, Member of the Réseau Villes Régions Mondes (VRM) and Member of the Sustainable Mobility Observatory.

Holding a Ph.D. in Geography from the Université de Montréal, he specializes in urban economics, local and regional economic development. He is particularly interested in the real estate market and urban infrastructure. His most recent research focuses on Quebec's local public finances and urban transportation.

A CIRANO Researcher and Fellow since 2004, François Vaillancourt is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Economics at the Université de Montréal.

Holding a Ph.D. in Economics from Queen's University, he has published numerous texts in the field of public policy, particularly on intergovernmental financial relations, taxation and language policies.

He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2009. Since 2000, he has been the Fulbright Canadian Research Scholar in Kennesaw in 2007, visiting professor at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies in Atlanta in 2007 and 2009, visiting professor at the FUCaM (Mons, Belgium, 2006) and visiting professor at the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (Paris, 2006 and 2008). During the 1990s, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto (1991) and the Australian National University (1991), a Shastri lecturer in India (1993) and a visiting scholar at the Institute of European Studies (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1994). He was also a research coordinator for the MacDonald Commission (1983-1986) and assistant director of the journal Canadian Public Policy-Policy Analysis (1986-1995). He has acted as a consultant for various national (including CIDA, House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, Séguin Commission, Law Reform Commission of Canada, Conseil de la Fédération, Conseil de la langue française du Québec, CSST, Finance Canada, Federal Expert Group on Equalization Reform, Office of the French Language, Statistics Canada and Auditor General of Canada) and international (AFD, World Bank, IMF, OECD, UNDP) organizations. He has worked in 31 countries on intergovernmental financial relations issues (taxation, transfers) and provided training in this area for the African Tax Institute, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the Hague Academy for Local Governance.