Robert A. Blecker


Robert A. Blecker is an American economist who is currently a professor in the Department of Economics at American University in Washington, DC. He is also Affiliate Faculty of the American University School of International Service and Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and Political Economy Research Institute. His research has made contributions to the fields of post-Keynesian and neo-Kaleckian macroeconomics, open economy macroeconomics, international trade theory and policy, global imbalances and the U.S. trade deficit, the North American [Free Trade Agreement], the economy of Mexico, export-led growth, and the theory of balance-of-payments constrained growth.

Career

Education

Blecker was born in Philadelphia, PA, USA, on November 17, 1956. He attended Central High School of Philadelphia and graduated from Springfield Township High School, Montgomery County, PA in 1974. Blecker received a B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1978, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 1983 and 1987. He also took courses in the Master's program in economics at El Colegio de México in 1978-79 under a Fulbright scholarship.
American University awarded Blecker its Faculty Awards for Outstanding Teaching in 2005 and for Outstanding Service to the University Community in 2014.

Professional Activity

Blecker is a member of the editorial boards of the International Review of Applied Economics, Review of Keynesian Economics, European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Investigación Económica, and Metroeconomica.
Blecker is perhaps best known for his work on the theory of demand-led growth in open economies, starting with his article in the Cambridge Journal of Economics in 1989. This article showed the possibility of both wage-led and profit-led demand regimes based on a country's exposure to international competition, parallel to a similar analysis for closed economies published around the same time by Amit Bhaduri and Stephen Marglin.

Partial Publications List

Books

Fundamentals of U.S. Foreign Trade Policy: Economics, Politics, Laws, and Issues, 2nd edition. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.Taming Global Finance: A Better Architecture for Growth and Equity. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 1999.

Articles

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Book chapters

  • “Integration, Productivity, and Inclusion in Mexico: A Macro Perspective,” in , pp. 177–204.
  • “Long-Run Growth in Open Economies: Export-Led Cumulative Causation or a Balance-of-Payments Constraint?” in , pp. 390–414.
  • “Global Imbalances and the U.S. Trade Deficit,” in , pp. 187–215.
  • “Trade and the Development Gap”, in , pp. 83–110.
  • “Open Economy Models of Growth and Distribution,” in , pp. 215–39.
  • “Distribution, Demand, and Growth in Neo-Kaleckian Macro Models,” in , pp. 129–52.
  • “Policy Implications of the International Saving-Investment Correlation,” in , pp. 173–229.