Dan Ciuriak
ciuriakd.bsky.social
Dan Ciuriak
@ciuriakd.bsky.social

Usually found behind a computer, on a bike, or on the courts with a tennis racquet. If none of the above, check the local pub and stop by for a beer.

Economics 65%
Political science 25%

As the Trump Administration continues it destructive assault on the foundations of US prosperity (in this case on the "brain gain" that fuels American innovation), it is fair to ask "Cui bono" - who benefits. My answer on the Trump I policies is aging nicely: papers.ssrn.com/abstract=446....

Or, as Yogi Berra reportedly said about a St. Louis restaurant: "No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded".

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak

he said that too lol

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak

Super interesting paper by @monapaulsen.bsky.social and @ciuriakd.bsky.social advocating for the establishment of a Caucus of small, open economies as a new, informal group to facilitate a collective response within the @wto.org.

A must read: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
https://lsen.bsky.social‬

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak

HASSAN: Since you testified that Americans don't pay the president's tariffs, will the Treasury reimburse this New Hampshire small business for the tariffs they paid to the government?

BESSENT: I think we have to look in the aggregate

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak

Dan and I have substantially revised our paper after engaging with colleagues. It has been a particularly tough paper for me to think through and digest the why, how, and what of WTO collective action in response to the United States' trade actions. @ssrn.bsky.social papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Nope. See: "Populist Trade Economics and the Political Economy of Populism," papers.ssrn.com/abstract=504.... It's about income distribution and the changes wrought by technological change.

Cass is off-base in his critique of comparative advantage and Noah Smith is off-base in saying Cass makes a "useful substantive point" on this. See Misunderstanding America: A Journey Through Trade Economics with a Broken Compass papers.ssrn.com/abstract=509.... www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-anti-e...
The anti-economists have overreached
Before you criticize something, at least try to understand it.
www.noahpinion.blog

A "mis-step"? Is it any different if racism and institutional viciousness results in deportation of a man who worked namelessly on building a railroad or someone who would go on to build technology for your adversary, making him your adversary in the process? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...
Opinion | The U.S. Deported This Chinese Scientist, in a Decision That Changed World History
www.nytimes.com

The Unbearable Incoherence of Unworkable Policies.
But it's substantial enough to compel the rest of the world to join a Mar-a-Lago Accord because reasons.
Miran sees 10% tariff rate not substantial enough for adverse economic impact

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak

But it's substantial enough to compel the rest of the world to join a Mar-a-Lago Accord because reasons.
Miran sees 10% tariff rate not substantial enough for adverse economic impact

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak

As @ciuriakd.bsky.social says, just set one up across the border in Nova Scotia. Authentic weather, authentic accents.

I'm sure Canada would welcome Harvard to establish a campus a short ferry ride away from Cambridge Mass. in Nova Scotia - Harvard North in the True North, Strong and above all Free.
Enrollmentment of foreign students halted. Unbelievable. Unconscionable.

“I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u...
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak, Ben Crum

Enrollmentment of foreign students halted. Unbelievable. Unconscionable.

“I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u...
www.nytimes.com

If the retailers do not pass on the tariffs to the consumers, there is no gain for American manufacturing because there will be no substitution away from imported products. Cue Bart Simpson on the chalkboard. "There's no gain without pain, there's no gain without pain, there's no...."

Isn't Russia trying to adjust borders themselves?

Reposted by Dan Ciuriak

Oh boy here we go

*UNITED STATES RATINGS CUT TO Aa1 FROM Aaa BY MOODY'S

Hi Pasi: Not sure I follow what "a follow" here means! But good to see you on the thread!

👍

These and other aspects of the Reciprocal Tariff are unpacked in my paper on @ssrn.bsky.social - The Trump Reciprocal Tariff: Design Flaws and Trade Costs - papers.ssrn.com/abstract=521...
The Trump Reciprocal Tariff: Design Flaws and Trade Costs
While trade economists have resoundingly condemned the Trump administration's reciprocal tariff policy, and markets have ratified that judgement by plunging on
papers.ssrn.com

So the tariffs calculated by such a model in a partial equilibrium setting with only two countries always comes up with the wrong answer. It turns out very hard to quantify the rip-off in trade - and maybe like we always thought trade is not a rip-off but an exchange.

So now the US is ripping off Vietnam! But there are all the other tariffs to factor into the simulation and for that you need a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, not a CPE model, which falsifies the USTR assumption that general equilibrium effects can be ignored.

Vietnam still loses big time in exports to the US, but the US picks up less of the action because third parties increase their sales to the US. The US also loses in third country markets because Vietnamese supply is now deflected to serve those markets. Fun fact: the US runs a surplus with VN!

But here is the interesting thing, this framing ignores the rest of the world. So, at a minimum, you have to expand the model to a 3-region model, Vietnam, the US, and the rest of the World. That's easily done in GSIM. So lets rerun the model in this format but with the same tariff on VN.

The discrepancy between lost sales by Vietnam and captured sales by the US is explained by the increase in US domestic prices, which curtail US domestic demand. US producer revenues and price markups (the producer surplus figure) increase but total economic welfare in the US is a loss of $15.8 bn

Vietnam loses $106 billion worth of exports to the US and US producers increase shipments by almost $47 billion. The GSIM framework lets us unpack what just happened.

The US ships about $15 trillion worth of goods to itself but only
$13.8 billion to Vietnam. Vietnam ships almost $119 billion to the US and about $883 billion to itself. The US tariff that stops the rip-off is 53.7%. So what happens when Trump imposes this:

I take Vietnam-US trade as an example and, using reasonable estimates of parameters, calculate for illustrative purposes the tariff that stops the rip-off and what that actually means in terms of trade impacts. The chart below shows the trade relationship in a 2-country setting as the model assumes.

That's not very practical however but fortunately we have computable partial equilibrium (CPE) models developed by a US agency with real expertise in this area, the Office of Economics in the US International Trade Commission. I use one of their models, the Global Simulation Model (GSIM).

This obviously is an intolerable situation once you realize it exists. Trump has taken on the job of stopping the rip-off when others are ripping off the US. It's up to other countries to stop the US from ripping them off. Whole lot of tariffs to calculate to make that happen. Enter USTR formula