JAMES R. MARKUSEN

Professor of International Economics


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Welcome to my home page. I am Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, though now retired from the department of economics. My principal interests are in the field of international trade and foreign direct investment. My research for over 40 years has concentrated on the location, production, and welfare effects of large scale firms and multinational corporations. I have worked on analytical models, numerical simulation models, and empirical estimation. I am particularly associated with the development of the horizontal approach, in which multinationals = foreign affiliates replicate many of the activities of other firm establishments in order to serve local and regional markets. On the topic of firm boundaries, my approach focuses on the non-rivaled and non-excludable properties of knowledge capital. Another branch of my work analyzes non-homothetic preferences and explores the role of income elasticities in explaining empirical puzzles involving trade volumes, trade partners, skilled-wage premia, and global environmental issues. For fun and foreign travel, I teach short courses on optimization and simulation modeling around the world.

In August 2021, I spent 10 wonderful days in Kyiv, Ukraine. I loved the people and the city. With Thomas Rutherford and David Tarr, I spend five days teaching a short course on simulation modeling to smart, lively, and focused students from the Ukraine and Georgia. This was followed by several days of celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence from the then crumbling Soviet Union. I stand with the people of the Ukraine against Putin's war of terror against a free democratic country and against his own people at home.

 

>    Curriculum Vita

 

>    Bio

 

>    Recent Publications

 

>    Teaching

 

>    Textbook

>    70th Birthday

 

 

Most Recent Research

New Publications and Forthcoming:

>    WE: Davies, Markusen
What do Multinational Do? The structure of multinational firms' international activities

>    JGEA: Markusen
Global Comparative Statics: model building from theoretical foundations

>    JIE: Caron, Fally, Markusen
Per-capita Income and the Demand for Skills

>   RIE : Horstman, Markusen
Learning to sell in new markets: A preliminary analysis of market entry by a multinational firm

>   JAERE: Markusen
An Alternative Base Case for Modeling Trade and the Environment

>   QJE: Caron, Fally, Markusen
International trade puzzles: a solution linking production and preferences

 

>   JIE: Markusen

Putting Per-capita Income back into Trade Theory

 

>   IJET: Markusen and Xie

Outsourcing versus Vertical Integration: Ethier-Markusen meets the Property-Rights Approach

>    JIE: Markusen
Expansion of trade at the extensive margin: a general gains-from-trade result and illustrative examples

Working Papers:

>     Regional Specialization: from the geography of industries to the geography of jobs

>    Foreign Firm Entry, Domestic Firm Productivity: theory, evidence and policy

 

 

Department of Economics, Campus Box 256

University of Colorado at Boulder

Boulder, CO 80309

James.Markusen@Colorado.Edu

Phone: (303) 492-0748