Tom Kemeny

Associate Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy
Headshot of Tom Kemeny

Areas of interest

  • Economic geography
  • Innovation
  • Cities
  • Inequality and prosperity
  • Economic growth
  • Regional development

Biography

Main Bio

Tom Kemeny (Ph.D. UCLA) joined the Munk School at the University of Toronto as an Associate Professor in 2022. His prize-winning research is focused on cities, technology, and the deep determinants of economic performance. Current projects include work tracing the historical links between disruptive innovation and income inequality; a study of the effects of immigrant diversity on productivity in contemporary Britain; and an investigation of the changing geography of wealth in the United States. Dr. Kemeny won the 2019 Understanding Society Paper Prize for a study linking migration and the Brexit vote. For his work on the effects of knowledge-sharing in local social networks, he was awarded the 2016 Urban Land Institute Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of Economic Geography. In 2015, together with Michael Storper, Taner Osman, and Naji Makarem, he published The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies: Lessons from San Francisco and Los Angeles (Stanford University Press).

Dr. Kemeny has advised governments and NGOs on issues of regional and international development, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); the U.S. Economic Development Administration; and the World Bank. Before joining U of T, he held academic appointments at Queen Mary, University of London; the University of Southampton; the London School of Economics; and UNC-Chapel Hill.

For more information, visit Tom’s website: https://tkemeny.github.io/

Select publications

  1. Kemeny, T., Petralia, S., & Storper, M. (2022). Disruptive innovation and spatial inequality. Regional Studies, 1-18.  
    https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2022.2076824

  2. Wang, Y., & Kemeny, T. (2022). Are mixed neighborhoods more socially cohesive? Evidence from Nanjing, China. Urban Geography, 1-21.
     
    https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2021.2021714

  3. Osman, T., & Kemeny, T. (2022). Local job multipliers revisited. Journal of Regional Science62(1), 150-170.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/jors.12561

  4. Haus-Reve, S., Cooke, A., Fitjar, R. D., & Kemeny, T. (2021). Does Assimilation Shape the Economic Value of Immigrant Diversity?. Economic Geography97(2), 117-139.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2021.1897462

  5. Kemeny, T., Nathan, M., & O’Brien, D. (2020). Creative differences? Measuring creative economy employment in the United States and the UK. Regional Studies54(3), 377-387.

  6. Kemeny, T., & Storper, M. (2020). The fall and rise of interregional inequality: Explaining shifts from convergence to divergence. Scienze Regionali19(2), 175-198.

Awards & recognition

Courses

GLA1012H
Statistics for Global Affairs
PPG2008H_0102
Comparative Public Policy