The Canadian Economics Association (CEA) is an academic association of Canadian economists. Formerly part of the Canadian Political Science Association, CEA was formed as a separate scientific society in 1967. It currently has over 1,500 members, two thirds of which reside in Canada. As a bilingual association, its official name in French is Association canadienne d'économique.
The CEA publishes the Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique (CJE) and organizes an annual conference that is usually held in the last week of May or first week of June. During the first week of December the CEA holds the Canadian Economics Employment Exchange (CEEE) in Toronto, providing an opportunity for recruitment of graduate students to faculty positions at universities and colleges.
The CEA does not take positions on matters of economic policy and is strictly non-partisan. The association's main purpose is the advancement of economic research and knowledge in Canada.
The CEA is governed by the Association's Executive Council, which is composed of the president, vice-president, president-elect (who is always the conference organizer for the next year), past president, secretary-treasurer, editor of the CJE and a number of members at large. Each year a new vice president is elected, who then advances automatically in the following years to the position of president-elect, then president, and then past president. The secretary-treasurer is elected for a five year period, while council members at large are elected for three years. The Executive Council meets twice a year, once during the annual conference in late May or early June, and once during the CEEE in December.
The annual conference has been held, or will be held, as follows:
In 2006 and 2009 the CEA conference was held jointly with the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society. Until 1998 the CEA conference was held jointly with the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS). Since 1999 the CEA has been holding separate annual meetings, except in 2008, when the CEA met again jointly with the CFHSS at the University of British Columbia.