Identity Politics and Trade Policy

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• Professor Elhanan Helpman - Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade, Harvard University
• Tuesday 05 March 2019, 17:30-19:00
• Yusuf Hamied Theatre, Christ's College.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Clare Kitcat.

We characterize trade policies that result from political competition when assessments of well- being include both material and psychosocial components. The material component reflects, as usual, satisfaction from consumption. Borrowing from social identity theory, we take the psychosocial component as combining the pride and self-esteem an individual draws from the status of groups with which she identifies and a dissonance cost she bears from identifying with those that are different from herself. In this framework, changes in social identification patterns that may result, for example, from increased income inequality or heightened racial and ethnic tensions, lead to pronounced changes in trade policy. We analyze the nature of these policy changes.

The lecture will be based on a paper with the same title, joint with Gene Grossman from Princeton University

This talk is part of the James Meade Lectures series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• James Meade Lectures
• Yusuf Hamied Theatre, Christ's College

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