Pol Antràs Puchal (born June 30, 1975) is a Catalan

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

who has served as the Robert G. Ory Professor of Economics at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

since 2015.https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/cv_antras_oct_2024.pdf Born in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

in 1975, he received BA (1998) and MSc (1999) degrees in

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

from Pompeu Fabra University, and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in economics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in 2003. He has served since then on the faculty of

, and was appointed the Robert G. Ory Professor of Economics in 2015. Antràs has been a research associate at the NBER since 2008, and directed its International Trade and Organization Working Group from 2007 to 2009. He is also a research affiliate at the

Centre for Economic Policy Research The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) is an independent, non-partisan, pan-European non-profit organisation. It aims to enhance the quality of policy decisions through providing policy-relevant research, based soundly in economic schola ...

, and is a member of CESifo’s Research Network. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2007 and the Fundación Banco Herrero Prize in 2009. He was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Econometric Society The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools in the practice of econometrics. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians o ...

in 2015, and was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 2024. He edited the ''

Quarterly Journal of Economics ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press for the Harvard University Department of Economics. Its current editors-in-chief are Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan ...

'' from 2015 to 2020, and previously served on the editorial board of several other academic journals, including the ''

American Economic Review The ''American Economic Review'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal first published by the American Economic Association in 1911. The current editor-in-chief is Erzo FP Luttmer, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College. The journal is ...

'', '' The Review of Economic Studies'', the '' Journal of International Economics'', and the '' Annual Review of Economics.'' Since 2022, he has served as a member of the Scientific Council of the Barcelona School of Economics.BSE Board appoints 5 new Scientific Council members
Barcelona School of Economics, press release of November 2022.

Early life and education

A Spanish citizen, Antràs grew up in

and attended the Aula Escola Europea from 1978 until 1993. As a schoolboy, he spent a year in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

as an exchange student at the Albuquerque Academy. He studied

at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, receiving a BA in 1998 and an MSc in 1999, both with highest honours. He went on to graduate study at the

, where he received a

in economics in 2003, studying under

Daron Acemoglu Kamer Daron Acemoğlu (;, ; born September 3, 1967) is a Turkish Americans, Turkish-American economist of Armenians in Turkey, Armenian descent who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1993, where he is currently the Ja ...

and Jaume Ventura.

Research

Antràs is known for his work on

international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (See: World economy.) In most countries, such trade represents a significan ...

. He is particularly known for his contributions to the so-called "New" New Trade Theory, which stresses the importance of firms rather than sectors in understanding the challenges and the opportunities countries face in the age of globalization. In his 2003 Ph.D. thesis, Antràs developed a workhorse model of multinational firms and global sourcing that emphasizes the role of contractual frictions in shaping the international organization of production. Much of his early work on the topic is overviewed in his book ''Firms, Contracts and Trade Structure'', published in 2019 by

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

. More recently, his research has focused on understanding the emergence of global value chains. His work has specifically emphasized the sequential nature of certain production processes, and the implications of this sequentiality for the global sourcing decisions of firms, and for the implications of trade wars. Together with Davin Chor, he developed an influential model of global value chains, while also developing a widely used measure of the position (or upstreamness) of industries in global value chains. This work was the basis of his 2018 Ohlin Lecture at the Stockholm School of Economics.

References

External links

*
official Harvard profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Antras, Pol Economists from Catalonia 21st-century Spanish economists 1975 births Living people People from Barcelona Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences faculty Pompeu Fabra University alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Fellows of the Econometric Society Economics journal editors