About

Paul Bergin is a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University, obtained in 1996, and a B.A. from Carleton College, where he graduated magna cum laude and received the Harrison Prize in economics in 1989. His research focuses on international macroeconomics, specifically studying international price dispersion, exchange rate pass-through, and monetary policy in an open economy. Bergin serves as a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and an international research fellow with the Kiel Institute. He also contributes to the academic community as an associate editor of the Journal of International Economics and is on the editorial board of Pacific Economic Review and Contemporary Economic Policy. In addition to his research, Bergin teaches courses in international macroeconomics and macroeconomics, including Intermediate Macro Theory and International Macroeconomics.

Research topics

• Monetary economics
• Economics
• Microeconomics
• International economics
• Macroeconomics
• Keynesian economics
• Finance
• International trade

Selected publications

• Fear of appreciation and current account adjustment

  Journal of International Economics · 2025-06-16

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Monetary Stabilization of Sectoral Tariffs

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Exchange Rates and Monetary Stabilization of Tariff Shocks

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-05-01 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Central banks around the world have grappled with the question of how to respond to the mix of inflationary and output implications of a trade war.Recent tariff changes have impacted a wider cross-section of goods than was true in the previous tariff round, targeting final consumption goods in addition to materials such as aluminum and steel.This paper studies the optimal monetary stabilization of tariffs using a New Keynesian model enriched with comparative advantage between multiple traded sectors that differ in terms of tariff exposure as well as market structure and price rigidity.We find that, in the aggregate, the optimal monetary response is expansionary, supporting activity and producer prices at the cost of tolerating short-run headline inflation -both in response to tariffs aimed at differentiated consumption goods and to tariffs on non-differentiated goods.The output and export dynamics arising from tariffs on each sector differ sharply, as do the motivations for an expansionary monetary response.Sectoral reallocation is an order of magnitude larger than predicted by standard macro models featuring one tradable and one nontradable sector.

  PublisherDOI

• Trade, Innovation and Firm Financing

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-09-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  While the trade literature has tended to view export activity and innovation as complementary activities, we present evidence that financial constraints are a reason the two activities can act as substitutes for small exporters.In particular, we find that small exporters have lower expenditure on R&D than comparable non-exporters, and we find a corresponding pattern in the leverage ratio of the capital structure of small firms.A model that combines firm decisions regarding the amount of innovation, exporting, and endogenous financial capital structure is able to account for these empirical findings.The model implies that small firms are unable to fully reap the gains from exporting due to financial constraints, as they reduce R&D to finance the costs of export participation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trade, Innovation and Firm Financing

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Catching up by ‘Deglobalizing’: Capital account policy and economic growth

  Journal of International Money and Finance · 2023-07-23 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Catching Up by ‘Deglobalizing’: Capital Account Policy and Economic Growth

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Macroeconomic Stabilization of Tariff Shocks: What is the Optimal Monetary Response?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Catching Up by ‘Deglobalizing’: Capital Account Policy and Economic Growth

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-02-01 · 5 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  While substantial empirical research has evaluated the question of whether capital account openness promotes economic growth, this paper finds empirical evidence for cases where the opposite is true-that a policy of capital controls can promote economic growth, when combined with a policy of reserve accumulation.Using panel data from 45 countries from 1985-2019, we find that capital controls combined with reserve accumulation-strategic capital account policycontribute to growth in real GDP and TFP.This effect is stronger for emerging markets and prior to the global financial crisis.We show that the policy is strongly associated with enlarging the scale of the manufacturing sector and productivity, and is consistent with theories of learning-bydoing through exporting.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The macroeconomic stabilization of tariff shocks: What is the optimal monetary response?

  Journal of International Economics · 2023 · 29 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Monetary economics
  • Keynesian economics
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Reuven Glick

  221 shared

• Alan M. Taylor

  Centre for Economic Policy Research

  58 shared

• Giancarlo Corsetti

  European University Institute

  54 shared

• Jyh‐Lin Wu

  National Sun Yat-sen University

  47 shared

• Robert C. Feenstra

  University of California, Davis

  23 shared

• Ju Hyun Pyun

  Korea University

  14 shared

• Ching‐Yi Lin

  7 shared

• Òscar Jordà

  University of California, Davis

  7 shared

Awards & honors

• National Bureau of Economic Research Research Associate
• Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Visiting Scholar
• Kiel Institute International Research Fellow
• Journal of International Economics Associate Editor
• Pacific Economic Review Editorial Board Member