George Alessandria
Professor of Economics | University of Rochester
Rochester, NY, UNITED STATES
Alessandria is an expert on international finance and international trade.
Areas of Expertise (3)
International Trade
Macro Economics
International Finance
Biography
George Alessandria joined the Department of Economics at the University of Rochester in 2014. He received a BA in mathematics and economics from Duke University, and an MA and PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the University of Rochester, he was a senior economic advisor and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. His research interests are in macroeconomics and international trade. In his use of dynamic models to study trade flows, George and his peers pioneered a new approach to the field of international trade that allows us to understand the effects of business cycles on trade. Through a microeconomic analysis of the behavior of firms, George’s work has given insight into what were long-standing puzzles concerning the slow response of trade patterns to economic volatility. He has published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Monetary Economics. He has served as an associate editor at some of the most prestigious journals in economics.
Education (3)
University of Pennsylvania: PhD, Economics 2000
University of Pennsylvania: MA, Economics 1996
Duke University: BA, Economics and Mathematics 1992
Selected Media Appearances (2)
Trump wants to whack Chinese firms. How badly could he hurt them?
The Economist print
2024-02-22
If he wins in November, Donald Trump has threatened to escalate the trade war he started in 2018 by imposing tariffs of 60% or more on Chinese goods. His allies have also advocated repealing normal trading relations with China, which became “permanent” in 2000. A new paper by George Alessandria of the University of Rochester and four co-authors suggests that the way exporters responded to the Reagan threat may hold lessons for new trade wars.
Expect another year of supply chain issues
University of Rochester online
2022-06-27
George Alessandra, an expert in international trade, explains how supply chain issues continue to reverberate through the American and global economies.
Selected Articles (1)
Trade War and Peace: U.S.-China Trade and Tariff Risk from 2015–2050
National Bureau of Economic ResearchGeorge Alessandria, Shafaat Khan, Armen Khederlarian, Kim Ruhl, and Joseph Steinberg
2024-02-01
Alessandria and his co-authors found (i) there was no increase in the likelihood of a trade war before 2018; (ii) the trade war was initially expected to end quickly, but its expected duration grew substantially after 2020; and (iii) the trade war reduced the likelihood that China would face Non-Normal Trade Relations tariffs in the future. Their findings imply that the expected mean future U.S. tariff on China rose more under President Biden than under President Trump.
