Thomas Marois Research Fellow

Thomas  is a Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Canada and formerly a Reader in Development Studies, SOAS University of London. He is co-editor of the 2023 book Public Banks, Public Water Exploring the Links in Europe (Routledge) and he has written articles for such top-ranked journals as Water International, Review of Political Economy, The China Quarterly, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Environment and Planning, and Review of International Political Economy.  

Underscoring his commitment to impact-oriented research and international policy activism, Thomas has worked with and produced reports for a global spectrum of research institutes, governing authorities, United Nations bodies, trade unions, NGOs/CSOs, and public banks and their professional associations, including but not limited to the Finnish Climate Fund, Public Services International, The Montreal Group, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, UNCTAD, and public banking activists in California and New York. In 2023, Thomas supported the Office of US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) to re-write the US Federal Public Banking Act, which was introduced to Congress in December 2023 with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14). He is an academic leader within the international public banking sphere, serving as a permanent member of the Finance in Common Summit (FiCS) Knowledge Advisory Group (the FiCS is now the single largest meeting of public banks in the world). In 2023, the Governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) invited Thomas to serve a three-year appointment on the CEB’s Social Inclusion Annual Award jury.  In October 2022, he spearheaded with the Municipal Services Project (where he serves as an Associate Director) Canada’s first international conference on public banking at the University of Ottawa, bringing together academics, UN staff, Indigenous leaders, policy makers, and public bankers from Canada and abroad. 

Areas of Expertise

Public banks; finance; development; public service provisioning; political economy

Awards

Public Banks: Decarbonisation, Definancialisation, and Democratisation (Cambridge University Press) awarded 2022-2023 Joan Robinson Prize for Best Book by the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy.

Find out more:

Public Banking Project, McMaster University: https://globalization.socsci.mcmaster.ca/research/public-banking-project/ 

Municipal Services Project, Queen’s University: https://www.municipalservicesproject.org/