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Sebastien Breau

Title: 
Professor and Department Chair
Sebastien Breau
Contact Information
Address: 

Burnside Hall Room 417

Phone: 
514-398-3242
Email address: 
sebastien.breau [at] mcgill.ca
Link(s): 
Website
Research areas: 
Economic geography
Regional economic development
Spatial inequalities
International trade
Quantitative methods
Innovation and knowledge complexity
Labour market dynamics
Biography: 

I am a Professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University. Before coming to McGill, I completed graduate studies in geography at the University of California, Los Angeles (PhD, 2006) and economics at the Université Laval (MA, 1999), as well as undergraduate studies in economics at the Université de Moncton (B.Sc.Soc.,1995). In between degrees, I also worked as an economist for the Conference Board of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development (Université de Moncton).

Current research: 

As an applied economic geographer, my research focuses on developing new datasets that enable us to explore the spatial dimensions of income inequality and better understand the factors contributing to growing spatial inequalities (as well as their consequences). By extension, my work also addresses the broader policy implications of spatial inequalities from a regional economic development perspective, mainly within the North American context.

I currently serve as co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Regional Sciences, Academic Director of the McGill-Concordia Quebec Inter-university Center for Social Statistics (QICSS) Lab and mentor for the Provost’s Faculty Mentor Network at McGill.

On-going projects:

  • “Arctic Economy and Social Transitions – The WAGE Circumpolar Partnership.” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Partnership Grant. Co-Investigator with Gérard Duhaime, Project Lead (2021-2026).
  • “Linking National and Regional Income Inequality: Cross-Country Data Harmonization and Analysis.” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Open Research Area Grant. Co-Investigator with Neil Lee, Project Lead (2021-2024).
  • “Canadian Journal of Regional Science.” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Aid to Scholarly Journals, Principal Investigator (2022-2026).
  • “The urban and regional dynamics of Canada's shrinking middle class.” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Insight Grant. Principal Investigator (2018-2023).
Selected publications: 
  • Dubé, J. and S. Breau (2024) Editorial note / Note éditoriale. Canadian Journal of Regional Science / Revue canadienne des sciences régionales, 47(2): 3-4. (available here)
  • Lee, A. and S. Breau (2024) Canada’s economic centre of gravity: New estimates using local labour market areas, Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 47(2): 29-38. (available here)
  • Riva, M., Grubbs, E. and S. Breau (2024) The geography of energy poverty in Canada: Spatial clustering and inequalities at the municipal level, Energy Policy, 195: DOI.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114298. (available here)
  • Breau, S. and A. Lee (2023) The evolution of the Kuznets curve in Canada, Papers in Regional Science. 102(4): 709-735. (available here)
  • Breau, S. et K. Manaugh (2023) La ligne rose est un meilleur projet que le REM de l’est, Options Politiques. (available here)
  • Lee, A., Rodgers, W.M. and S. Breau (2023) Challenging transitions? Assessing the occupational mobility patterns of US immigrants by gender, International Migration. 61(6): 155-174. (available here)
  • Breau, S., Wylie, M., Manaugh, K. and S. Carr (2023) Inclusive growth, public transit infrastructure investments and neighbourhood trajectories of inequality in Montreal, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Society. 55(8): 2009-2030. (available here)
  • Riva, M., Makasi, S., Das, R., O’Sullivan, Kaiser, D., Dufresne, P. and S. Breau (2023) Energy poverty: an overlooked risk factor for the health of Canadians, Canadian Journal of Public Health. 114(3): 422-431. (available here)
  • Breau, S. (2022) “Analyzing the dynamics of inter-regional inequality: The case of Canada” in S. Rey and R. Franklin (Eds.), The Handbook of Spatial Analysis in the Social Sciences, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 416-433. (available here)
  • Coomes, O. T., Abizaid, C., Breau, S. and T. R. Moore (2022) The academic job market in U.S. Geography and the business cycle: The long shadow of the 2007–2009 recession. The Professional Geographer, 74(4): 602-619. (available here)
  • Breau, S. and J. Dubé (2021) Editorial note. Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 44(1): 3-4. (available here)
  • Breau, S., Burkhart, N., Shin, M., Marchand, Y. and J. Sauer (2020) Is it time to start worrying about growing regional inequalities in Canada? The Canadian Geographer, 64(4): 542–550. (available here)
  • Marchand, Y., Dubé, J., and S. Breau (2020) Exploring the causes and consequences of regional income inequality in Canada. Economic Geography, 96(2) 83-107. (available here)

Research lab members:

  • Morgan Sleeth, PhD student (2021- )
  • Abigail Milovancevic, MA student (2025- )
  • Saman Gais-Rhasem, MA student (2021-24)
  • Aidan Maddock, BA Honours student (2024-25)
Group: 
Faculty
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