Professor Elhanan Helpman will present the second James Meade Lecture
Title: “Identity Politics and Trade Policy”
Abstract: 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 took place in Yusuf Hamied Theatre, Christ's College, on Tuesday 5th March 2019, from 5.30pm.
Elhanan Helpman is the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Statistics form Tel Aviv University, an M.A. degree in Economics from the same institution, and a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Harvard University.