John McLaren

Department of Economics

University of Virginia

Basic info.

I am an economist with particular interests in international trade and immigration, labor adjustment, political economy and economic development.

CV: August 2026.

Linkedin, Bluesky.

Textbook.

International Trade, Wiley and Sons, 2012.

(There's a whole drama about why there is not yet a second edition -- but I hope that will be corrected in the near future!)

Refereed Publications.

“Foreign Direct Investment, Global Value Chains, and Labor Rights: No Race-to-the-Bottom?” (with Hyejoon Im).  Journal of Development Economics (2026) 183, September 2026, 103865.

“Global Value Chains and Labor Standards: The Race-to-the-Bottom Problem.” (with Hyejoon Im). Forthcoming, Economic Journal (2026).  (WP version.)

“A Swing-State Theorem, with Evidence,” (with Xiangjun Ma and Karim Chalak). Journal of International Economics 159 (2026): 104189.  (Bluesky thread.)

“Racial Disparity in COVID-19 Deaths: Seeking Economic Roots with Census data.” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 21:3, pp. 897-919, April 30, 2021.

“Fast-Track Authority: A Hold-Up Interpretation” (with Levent Celik and Bilgehan Karabay).  Journal of International Economics 127 (2020).

“Looking for Local Labor-Market Effects of NAFTA” (joint with Shushanik Hakobyan).  Review of Economics and Statistics 98:4, October 2016, pp. 728-41.

“Trade Policy and Wage Inequality: A Structural Analysis with Occupational and Sectoral Mobility.” (With Erhan Artuç). Journal of International Economics 97, pp. 278-94, 2015.

“When is it Optimal to Delegate: The Theory of Fast-track Authority.”  (With Levent Çelik and Bilgehan Karabay.)  American Economic Journals: Microeconomics, August 2015.

“Trade Policy Making in a Model of Legislative Bargaining.” With Levent Çelik and Bilgehan Karabay.  Journal of International Economics 91:2 (November 2013), pp. 179-90.

“Media Mergers and Media Bias with Rational Consumers,” Journal of the European Economic Association 10:4, August 2012. (Joint with Simon Anderson.)

“Pareto-improving firing costs?” European Economic Review, 55:8, December 2011, pp. 1083-1093. (Joint with Bilgehan Karabay).

“Trade, Offshoring, and the Invisible Handshake” (joint with Bilgehan Karabay).  Journal  of International Economics 82:1, 2010, pp. 26-34.

“Trade Shocks and Labor Adjustment: A Structural Empirical Approach.”  American Economic Review 100:3 (June 2010), pp. 1008-45.  (Joint with Erhan Artuç  and Shubham Chaudhuri.)

“Delay and Dynamics in Labor Market Adjustment: Simulation Results” (joint with Erhan Artuç and Shubham Chaudhuri).   Journal of International Economics, 75:1, 2008, pp. 1-13 (lead article).

“A Theory of Insidious Regionalism.”  Quarterly Journal Economics CXVII (May 2002), pp. 571-608.

“‘Globalization’ and Vertical Structure,” American Economic Review 90:5 (December 2000), pp. 1239-54.

“Supplier Relations and the Market Context: A Theory of Handshakes.” Journal of International Economics 48:1 (June 1999), pp. 121-38.

“Speculation on Primary Commodities: the Effects of Restricted Entry.”  Review of Economic Studies 66 (November 1999), pp. 853-71.

“Consequences of Discretion in the Formation of Commodities Policy.”  Journal of Public Economics 69:3 (September 1998), pp. 347-70.

“Black Markets and Optimal Evadable Taxation.”   Economic Journal 108:448 (May 1998), pp. 665-79.

“Size, Sunk Costs, and Judge Bowker’s Objection to Free Trade,”  American Economic Review 87:3 (June 1997), pp. 400-20.

“Taxes and Bribery: The Role of Wage Incentives” (With Timothy Besley).  The Economic Journal 103:416 (January 1993), pp. 119-41.

Selected Non-refereed publications.

“Trade Shocks and Labor-market Adjustment.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Finance and Economics, July 2022.

“Racial Disparity in COVID-19 Deaths: Seeking Economic Roots with Census data.” VoxEu.org column, August 11.

“Globalization and Labor Market Dynamics.” Annual Review of Economics, Volume 9, 2017.

“Chapter 2: The Political Economy of Commercial Policy,” in Kyle Bagwell and Robert Staiger (eds.), Handbook of Commercial Policy, Volume 1A, Elsevier: 2016, pp. 109-59.

Selected Working Papers.

NBER page:  Links to NBER Working Papers and other information.

“Child Labor Standards in Regional Trade Agreements: Theory and Evidence.”  (Joint with Ryan Abman, Clark Lundberg, and Michele Ruta.)  NBER Working Paper No. 30908, February 2023.

“NAFTA and the Wages of Married Women” (with Shushanik Hakobyan).  NBER Working Paper No. 24424, March 2018.