Richard Baldwin is Professor of International Economics. An expert on global economic policy and theory, he specializes in international trade and is recognized as an authority on the economic drivers and risks of globalization. With research interests including regionalism and European integration, his insights bridge historical context, current events, and forward-looking perspectives.
Following an initial interest in economic development, Baldwin’s focus switched to trade when he met Paul Krugman in 1982, under whose guidance he worked on his PhD and with whom he would go on to write several articles.
Services are becoming much more important in the world of international commerce. This will have an impact on everything from the nature of protectionism to job displacement in rich nations and new development journeys in emerging markets. Furthermore, as service sectors are among the least polluting, it will have important implications for carbon emissions.
While most of his career has been focused on policy-relevant research, he has of late taken a more practical, business-oriented direction with his most recent book addressing questions surrounding the future of work in G7 nations.
A frequent keynote speaker and panel participant, Baldwin was listed among the 100 most influential German economists by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and in 2021 was made a Schumpeter-Haberler Distinguished Fellow by the International Economic Association.
He advises governments and international organizations around the world on globalization and trade policy issues. During the administration of President George HW Bush, Baldwin was Senior Staff Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, following trade matters such as the Uruguay Round and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations as well as numerous US-Japan trade conflicts.
Additionally, Baldwin was a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Trade from 2009 to 2015 and was twice an elected member on the Council of the European Economic Association.
He also served as President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and in 2007, founded its economic policy portal, VoxEU, to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading economists and has since served as its editor-in-chief.
Baldwin has published extensively in the areas of globalization, international trade, regionalism, WTO, European integration, economic geography, political economy, and growth in such publications as Journal of International Economics, European Economic Review, and Review of International Economics. His work includes a wealth of articles, policy monographs, conference volumes, and book chapters.
His book The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work looks at the impact of globalization and robotics (globotics) on the future of work in advanced economies and has been translated into six languages. Published in 2016, The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization, was listed on the Best Books of 2016 by the Financial Times and the Economist Magazine and cited by former US Treasury secretary Lawrence H Summers as one of the five most important books on globalization.
Before joining IMD in 2023, Baldwin was Professor of International Economics and Co-Director of the Centre for Trade and Economic Integration (CTEI) at the Graduate Institute in Geneva where he taught graduate courses on globalization, European integration, and international trade theory. He was also a visiting professor at Oxford and at MIT, having started his academic career as a professor at the Columbia School of Business in New York.
