Douglas A. Irwin
Professor
Appointments
Co-Director of Political Economy Project
John French Professor in Economics
Area of Expertise
U.S. trade policy, the World Trade Organization,
globalization,
trade policy reform in developing countries
Biography
Douglas Irwin is John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2017), which The Economist and Foreign Affairs selected as one of their Best Books of the Year.
He is the author of Free Trade Under Fire (Princeton University Press, fifth edition 2020), Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s (MIT Press, 2012), Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression (Princeton University Press, 2011), The Genesis of the GATT (Cambridge University Press, 2008, co-authored with Petros Mavroidis and Alan Sykes), Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (Princeton University Press, 1996), and many articles on trade policy and economic history in books and professional journals.
He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He was president of the Economic History Association (2023-24). He worked on trade policy issues while on the staff of President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers and later worked in the International Finance Division at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. Before joining Dartmouth, Irwin taught at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.
Education
B.A. University of New Hampshire (1984)
Ph.D. Columbia University (1988)
Publications
Trade Policy, Exchange Rates, and the Globalization Wave of the 1990s, Journal of Economic History (2025)
"Free Trade Under Fire , 5th ed." (Princeton University Press, 2020)
Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2017)
"Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s" (MIT Press, 2012)
"Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression" (Princeton University Press, 2011)
"Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade" (Princeton University Press, 1996)
Works in Progress
Trade Policy Revolution, book in progress, about trade reform in developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s
Recent Media and Op-Eds
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-blanket-tariffs-are-a-bridge-too-far… Blanket Tariffs are a Bridge Too Far</a>, with Alan Wm. Wolff, <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, November 4, 2025</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/opinion/trump-reagan-tariffs-canada… Canadians Are Right About Reagan and Free Trade</a>, <em>New York Times</em>, October 29, 2025.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2025/04/03/even-americans-dont-… Invitation: Even Americans Don't Want Trump's Barmy Tariffs</a>, <em>The Economist</em>, April 3, 2025</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-tariffs-are-unique-in-history-dougla… Interview: Trump's Tariffs are Unique in History</a>, <em>Wall Street Journal, </em>April 11, 2025</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/reciprocal-tariffs-make-no-sense-duties-tra… Tariffs Make No Sense</a>, Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2025</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/07/david-frum-show-ta… Tariff Disaster</a>: The David Frum Show, July 30, 2025</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4109536a-4c9a-4d8c-b7d8-c6a826b4d12b">Trump and the History of Tariffs</a>, The Economics Show, Financial Times Podcast with Alan Beattie, January 20, 2025</p>
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