Mostafa Beshkar

How Tariffs Affect Trade Deficits...

... a new paper with amazing trade economist Arnaud Costinot.

Many politicians and the general public expect tariffs to reduce imports lower imports and thus work to close a trade deficit.

Economists typically say "not so fast"...

🧵1/n

How the War on Drugs got us... blueberries : Planet Money Ever wondered why you can buy fresh Peruvian blueberries in the dead of winter? The answer, surprisingly, is tied to cocaine. Today on the show, we look at how the war on drugs led to an American trad...

A fascinating podcast on how economic statecraft—through tariff cuts and foreign aid—helped replace cocaine cultivation with asparagus and blueberries.
www.npr.org/player/embed...

Please elaborate!

Reciprocal Deposits: Pros and Cons of an Innovative Instrument | Poole Thought Leadership Reciprocal deposits could fill a banking stability gap. But they have drawbacks of their own, according to a Poole scholar.

See my last piece on reciprocal deposits here:
#pooletoughtleadership

poole.ncsu.edu/thought-lead...

Subscribe to Public Notice Sign up for independent, incisive coverage of US politics and media, right in your inbox five times a week. Click to read Public Notice, by Aaron Rupar, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousan...

Reminder as we head into the weekend that if you appreciate all the hours I sink into watching political events and bringing you the newsiest clips, please support what I do by signing up for my newsletter. It's vital to support independent media right now and paid subscribers make my work possible.

The actress facing 74 lashes in Iran for her Oscar-nominated film Instead of attending the glitzy Hollywood ceremony, Soheila Golestani is on trial by the Revolutionary Court for her part in The Seed of the Sacred Fig

In grim contrast to the red carpet, Soheila Golestani faces 74 lashes for her Oscar-nominated film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Watch this film to understand the repression of Iran’s theocratic regime &why the #WomenLifeFreedom movement is so important: www.thetimes.com/culture/film...

If you are still around San Francisco for the #ASSA2025 meeting, please come check out this session on oligopoly and international trade.

Trade nerds! Famous 1976 handwritten paper where Victor Norman anticipates the new trade theory, esp. Helpman-Krugman Heckscher-Ohlin-Krugman fusion. He gave it to me in October 1997 in Bergen.
See full story (amazing) in my Factful Friday from 4 October 2024 lnkd.in/e5Buz3WU

Our survey on #sanctions was accepted at the Annual Review of Economics. Thanks to my amazing co-authors @GFelbermayr, Cliff Morgan, and Costas Syropoulos for this interdisciplinary collaboration. I learned a lot. I wish a healthy and happy 2025 to all!🍾

ideas.repec.org/p/drx/wpaper...

1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners - Wikipedia

Thousands were murdered in the summer of 1988 alone.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_ex...

Daron Acemoglu delivers remarks at 2024 Nobel Banquet - Massachusetts Institute of Technology On December 10, 2024, Daron Acemoglu delivered an acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, on behalf of himself, Simon Johnson, and James A.…

Dear friends and followers, for those of you who are interested, here is the recording of the Nobel banquet speech: shapingwork.mit.edu/news/daron-a...

Trade economists: After you publish your first trade paper, add yourself to Alan Deadorff's Family Tree of Trade Economists. public.websites.umich.edu/~alandear/tr...

The cohort sizes suggest the field is in decline, but I think participation has fallen. Sign up!

IU debate team discussing Trump's proposed tariffs.

Just wrapped up a fantastic debate in my int'l trade class! Two IU debate team members discussed Trump's proposed tariffs, starting with opening speeches for & against, then leading class discussions to refine arguments using course material. A highly-recommended class activity!

Important evidence based reality check from @piie.com @melovely_max
Trump’s promised tariffs will hit large flows of electronics, machinery, autos, and chemicals
www.piie.com/blogs/realti...

What to know about the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and what their legacy means for Trump The measure helped worsen the Great Depression, experts said.

Smoot and Hawley back in the news . . .
abcnews.go.com/Business/smo...

Killer paper! One of the best analysis of the effects of a trade agreement on individual workers.

Thanks for sharing! This is great.

International Trade economists Join the conversation

@thomsampson.bsky.social made one here:
go.bsky.app/G3dqAYg

This is very useful. Is there a starter pack for trade?

Submit a paper to RMET and join us in Banff, Canada, May 23-25. Submissions due January 17,2025. Emily Blanchard will give a keynote talk.

www.freit.org/RMET/2025/

The best simple explanation of the dollar's role is still Charles Kindleberger's old analogy with the role of English as the language of international business. Foreigners learn English partly because we're such a big market, but also because so many others speak English 2/

Do Science Kardashians Get Citation Premium? Self-Fulfilling Effects of Social Media on Citations We analyze whether the social media popularity of scientists affects the number of academic citations. We use the COVID-19 global pandemic as a quasi-natural experiment exogenously increasing public a...

Revised WP with @econlessmann.bsky.social
shows it actually pays to be a "Science Kardashian" on social media! Kardashian virologists' pre-COVID papers started to get significantly more citations after COVID compared to their coauthors' papers during COVID. www.cesifo.org/en/publicati...

Just in case you are in the mood for some light reading in international economics:

poole.ncsu.edu/thought-lead...

Trump may be up to something after all. One easy way to bring prices down is to make everyone very poor.

A 25% tariff on Mexico plus mass deportations? Looks like we're Making Heckscher-Ohlin Great Again!
If high tariffs are implemented (a big if), we should either expect a massive increase in prices or a spike in immigration of manufacturing labor. Either way, US workers wouldn't gain much.

Just to have posted something here... It is a great day in Singapore!

Good to know that it's not just the Bannon-Lighthizer spin on trade history at play in the Trump administration . . .
www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Just back from giving a talk to 2nd year students on how to approach research, how to write a paper. Abhijit was coming after me (good thing he didn't go first, tough act to follow!)

Here are my slides...
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0pm2m...

Trump’s Trade Agenda Could Benefit Friends and Punish Rivals Donald Trump has a record of pardoning favored companies from tariffs. Companies are once again lining up to try to influence him.

Trump’s tariffs fit perfectly into his broader political strategy: making himself the center of attention. Tariffs will once again force businesses and governments to come to him, begging for exemptions. It isn’t about policy—it is about control, leverage, and staying in the spotlight.

Agenda47: Cementing Fair and Reciprocal Trade with the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act | Donald J. Trump For President 2024 Under the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, other countries will have two choices—they’ll get rid of their tariffs on us, or they will pay us hundreds of billions of dollars, and the United States will make...

Will TRTA be a serious proposal? The Trump Reciprocal Trade Act turns over US tariff sovereignty to other countries. Strict reciprocity: we impose on them what they impose on us. Tariffs differ by product and country. MFN/WTO out the window.
www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/age...