Paul Segerstrom

I am the Tore Browaldh Professor of international economics.  My research focuses on economic growth and international trade.   

Early in my career, I developed the first quality ladders model of endogenous growth (“A Schumpeterian Model of the Product Life Cycle,” American Economic Review, 1990).  My most influential paper presents an endogenous growth model where innovations become increasingly more difficult over time and population growth is needed to sustain economic growth (“Endogenous Growth Without Scale Effects,” American Economic Review, 1998).  Extending this model to an international trade setting, I have shown that symmetric trade liberalization between countries promotes innovation, economic growth and wage inequality (“A Schumpeterian Model of Protection and Relative Wages, American Economic Review, 1999).

I have also done research on intellectual property rights issues in a North-South trade setting, showing that developing countries can benefit from adopting stronger intellectual property rights protection because this leads to more foreign direct investment going to the reforming countries (“North-South Trade with Multinational Firms and Increasing Product Variety,” International Economic Review, 2011).

My most recent research has focused on better understanding the properties of the Melitz model of international trade (“The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Industrial Productivity,” Journal of the European Economic Association, 2015) and developing a model of international trade where unilateral trade liberalization has more realistic effects on industrial productivity (“A Solution to the Melitz-Trefler Puzzle,” 2016).

I have recently developed a new way of teaching International Trade at the master level, where mathematics is taught first (integrals, differential equations, optimal control theory) and then models of international trade are presented as illustrations of how the mathematics is used in economics.  I currently teach International Economics at the bachelor level and International Trade at the master level.   

For more information, see my personal webpage.