Biography
Dave Donaldson is the Class of 1949 Professor of Economics at MIT. He carries out research on trade, both international and intranational, with applications in the fields of International Economics, Development Economics, Economic History, Environmental Economics, Urban Economics, and Agricultural Economics. He has studied, among other topics: the welfare and inequality effects of market integration, the impact of improvements in transportation infrastructure, and how trade can mitigate and exacerbate the effects of climate change. This work was awarded the 2017 John Bates Clark Medal, given by the American Economic Association to the US-based economist “under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge”, as well as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and several grants from the National Science Foundation. Dave Donaldson obtained an undergraduate degree in Physics from Oxford University and a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Current areas of research include:
- Effects of trade agreements: gains from trade; impacts on inequality; pro-competitive effects; evaluating predictions of trade models
- Spatial policies: transportation infrastructure; place-based policy; path dependence
- Allocative efficiency: industrial policy; misallocation
- Political economy of trade policy
Publications
