# Pol Antràs
**Pol Antràs** (born 1975 in Barcelona, Spain) is a Spanish economist who works on international trade and applied theory at Harvard University, where he has been the Robert G. Ory Professor of Economics since 2015. He is known for building incomplete-contracts and property-rights models of where firms produce and how they organize global value chains, and for empirical work measuring the position of industries within those chains.[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf) • [2](https://antras.scholars.harvard.edu/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Position | Robert G. Ory Professor of Economics, Harvard University, since 2015; assistant professor 2003-2007, full professor 2007-2014[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf) |
| Training | PhD in economics, MIT, 2003; thesis "Firms, Contracts, and Trade Structure" under a committee including Daron Acemoglu and Jaume Ventura[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf) |
| Signature papers | "Firms, Contracts, and Trade Structure" (QJE 2003); "Global Sourcing" with Elhanan Helpman (JPE 2004); "Organizing the Global Value Chain" with Davin Chor (Econometrica 2013)[3](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/fcts.pdf) • [4](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/383099) • [5](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/antraschorecma.pdf) |
| Editorial role | Editor of the *Quarterly Journal of Economics*, 2015-2020[2](https://antras.scholars.harvard.edu/) |
| Honors | Econometric Society Fellow (2015); American Academy of Arts and Sciences member (2024); Fundación Banco Herrero Prize (2009); Sloan Research Fellowship (2007-2009)[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf) • [7](https://www.amacad.org/person/pol-antras) |
| Book | *Global Production: Firms, Contracts and Trade Structure* (Princeton University Press, December 2015)[8](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168272/global-production) |
## Career and positions
Antràs studied at Pompeu Fabra University, where he received the UPF Graduation Prize in 1998, and moved to MIT for graduate work, completing his PhD in 2003. He joined Harvard as an assistant professor the same year and has remained there since, taking the Robert G. Ory chair in 2015.[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf)
His service roles span the main research networks of the discipline. He has been a Research Associate at the [National Bureau of Economic Research](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-bureau-of-economic-research) since 2008 and directed the NBER's International Trade and Organization Working Group from 2007 to 2009; he is a Research Affiliate at CEPR, a member of CESifo's Research Network, and a member of the Scientific Council of the Barcelona School of Economics.[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf) • [2](https://antras.scholars.harvard.edu/) From 2015 to 2020 he served as Editor of the *Quarterly Journal of Economics*, after earlier stints on the editorial boards of the *American Economic Review*, the *Review of Economic Studies*, the *Journal of International Economics*, and the *Annual Review of Economics*.[2](https://antras.scholars.harvard.edu/) In 2018-2019 he co-directed the World Bank's *World Development Report 2020* on global value chains, with Caroline Freund and Aaditya Mattoo.[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf)
## Contributions to trade theory
**The 2003 model.** Antràs's dissertation, published as "Firms, Contracts, and Trade Structure" in the *Quarterly Journal of Economics* (November 2003), embeds an incomplete-contracting, property-rights theory of firm boundaries in a trade model with imperfect competition and product differentiation. The model determines both which firms become multinationals and where they produce. Its central prediction is a unique threshold of capital intensity: below it, firms outsource the production of intermediate inputs; above it, they vertically integrate. He tested the predictions with data on intrafirm and total U.S. imports, finding that capital intensity and capital abundance explain the pattern of intrafirm U.S. imports.[3](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/fcts.pdf)
The paper positioned itself against earlier theories of the multinational firm based on factor-price differentials, transport costs, and scale economies (Helpman 1984, Markusen 1984, Brainard 1997), arguing that those models could not explain why cross-border transactions are internalized within firm boundaries rather than conducted at arm's length.[3](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/fcts.pdf)
**Global sourcing with heterogeneity.** With Elhanan Helpman, Antràs introduced incomplete contracting and offshoring into the Melitz framework of firm heterogeneity, in the *Journal of Political Economy* paper "Global Sourcing" (2004). The model is North-South: heterogeneous final-good producers choose both an ownership structure and a supplier location, and firms of different productivity levels choose different organizational forms. The productivity ordering runs from foreign insourcing (FDI) for the most productive Northern firms, through foreign outsourcing and domestic insourcing, to domestic outsourcing for the least productive surviving firms.[4](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/383099) • [9](https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstreams/7312037c-6212-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/download) • [10](https://www.nber.org/reporter/2010number2/international-trade-and-organizations)
His dissertation work also established two empirical regularities that the theory rationalizes: positive cross-industry correlations between capital intensity and intrafirm trade shares, and positive cross-country correlations between capital abundance and intrafirm trade shares.[10](https://www.nber.org/reporter/2010number2/international-trade-and-organizations) A related paper on the product cycle showed that incomplete international contracts generate "organizational cycles": a new good is first manufactured where it was developed, then shifts to integrated Southern suppliers, and only later to nonintegrated Southern suppliers.[10](https://www.nber.org/reporter/2010number2/international-trade-and-organizations) • [9](https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstreams/7312037c-6212-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/download)
## Global value chains research
**Organizing the Global Value Chain.** The 2013 *Econometrica* paper with Davin Chor extended the property-rights approach to a production process with a continuum of uniquely sequenced stages. The key innovation relative to earlier property-rights models is this technological ordering of stages combined with sequential bargaining. The model yields a sharp characterization of optimal ownership: the incentive to integrate a supplier varies systematically with the supplier's upstream or downstream position.[5](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/antraschorecma.pdf)
The direction of the prediction depends on demand elasticity. When demand is sufficiently elastic (stages are sequential complements), there is a unique cutoff stage such that all upstream stages are outsourced and all downstream stages are integrated; with sufficiently inelastic demand the converse holds. The empirical tests combine U.S. Census Related Party Trade data, Broda-Weinstein (2006) import demand elasticities, and two "downstreamness" measures built from the 2002 U.S. Input-Output Tables, and find evidence broadly supportive of the predictions.[5](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/antraschorecma.pdf)
**Measuring position in the chain.** With Chor and colleagues, Antràs developed the "upstreamness" measure of production and trade flows (AER 2012), which indexes how far an industry sits from final demand; it is among his most-cited works.[6](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XfMKIU4AAAAJ) Later work includes "Internalizing Global Value Chains" (*Journal of Political Economy*, 2019), "The Margins of Global Sourcing" (*American Economic Review*, 2017), and "On the Geography of Global Value Chains" (*Econometrica*, 2020).[11](https://ideas.repec.org/e/pan181.html) A survey with the framing that GVC contracts are incomplete and hard to enforce, making firm-boundary choices central, appeared as "The Uncharted Waters of International Trade" in the *Journal of the European Economic Association* (2025).[12](https://antras.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum5876/files/2025-02/Uncharted_JEEA.pdf)
## Books
*Global Production: Firms, Contracts and Trade Structure* was published by [Princeton University Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/princeton-university-press) in December 2015 (336 pages, ISBN 9780691168272), in the CREI Lectures in [Macroeconomics](https://www.edgepedia.org/macroeconomics) series. The publisher describes it as the first fully comprehensive overview of multinational firms' global sourcing strategies, with empirical tests based on U.S. Customs and Census Offices data.[8](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168272/global-production) On the publisher's page, Gene Grossman calls Antràs "the world's leading expert on the theory and empirics of offshoring, outsourcing, and global value chains," and Marc Melitz writes that the book is "an indispensable part of the required reading list for graduate courses in international trade."[8](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168272/global-production) A graduate textbook, *The Economics of Global value Chains*, written with Davin Chor and based on Antràs's 2018 Ohlin Lecture, is in preparation.[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf)
## By the numbers
His most-cited works are "Global Sourcing" (JPE 2004), "Firms, Contracts, and Trade Structure" (QJE 2003, 1,936), "Measuring the Upstreamness of Production and Trade Flows" (AER 2012, 1,242), "Organizing the Global Value Chain" ([Econometrica](https://www.edgepedia.org/econometrica) 2013, 1,015), and "On the Geography of Global Value Chains" (Econometrica 2020, 405).[6](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XfMKIU4AAAAJ)
As of August 2026, RePEc's discounted recursive citation ranking evaluated 74,012 registered authors, with [Daron Acemoglu](https://www.edgepedia.org/daron-acemoglu) ranked first at a score of 5083.86 and his Harvard colleague Marc Melitz at 1507.47.[13](https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.wdsccites.html) Antràs's RePEc profile (Short-ID pan181) lists his terminal degree as MIT 2003.[11](https://ideas.repec.org/e/pan181.html)
## Recent developments
The CV lists "Trade Policy and Global Sourcing" (*JPE Macro*, March 2024), "The Uncharted Waters of International Trade" (*JEEA*, February 2025), "Exporting Ideology" (*Quarterly Journal of Political Science*, January 2025), and "Measuring the Average Period of Production" (*AEA Papers and Proceedings*) as forthcoming in May 2025.[1](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf) RePEc also lists a December 2025 NBER volume, "International Fragmentation, Supply Chains, and Financial Frictions," co-authored with Bauducco, Goldberg, and Kalemli-Özcan.[11](https://ideas.repec.org/e/pan181.html)
**An Austrian Model of Global Value Chains.** In June 2024, as a CES Visiting Scholar at LMU Munich, Antràs presented a new framework in which the time length of each production stage is endogenous: longer maturation raises labor productivity but increases working-capital needs, so countries with lower interest rates feature longer production processes, higher productivity, and higher wages. The model predicts that under free trade, countries with lower interest rates specialize in "time intensive" GVC stages; if trade equalizes interest rates, trade patterns are shaped instead by capital intensity and abundance; and both falling trade costs and declining worldwide interest rates increase the share of GVC trade.[14](https://www.en.ces.econ.uni-muenchen.de/ces-visiting-program/ces-visiting-scholars/2024/antras/index.html)
On de-globalization, his NBER working paper "De-Globalisation? Global Value Chains in the Post-COVID-19 Age" (2020) finds little systematic evidence that the world economy entered an era of de-globalization. He argues the post-Great-[Recession](https://www.edgepedia.org/recession) slowdown is a natural sequel to the rapid globalization of the late 1980s to early 2000s, and that the main challenge for globalization's future is institutional and political rather than technological.[15](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28115/w28115.pdf)
## References
1. [Curriculum Vitae, Pol Antràs](https://jstor.econometricsociety.org/images/users/993/originals/Curriculum-Vitae.pdf)
2. [Pol Antràs, official Harvard site](https://antras.scholars.harvard.edu/)
3. [Firms, Contracts, and Trade Structure (QJE, November 2003)](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/fcts.pdf)
4. [Global Sourcing (Antràs & Helpman, JPE 112(3), 2004)](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/383099)
5. [Organizing the Global Value Chain (Antràs & Chor, Econometrica 2013)](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/antras/files/antraschorecma.pdf)
6. [Pol Antras, Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XfMKIU4AAAAJ)
7. [Pol Antràs, American Academy of Arts and Sciences](https://www.amacad.org/person/pol-antras)
8. [Global Production, Princeton University Press](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168272/global-production)
9. [Property Rights and the International Organization of Production (AER P&P 95(2), 2005)](https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstreams/7312037c-6212-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/download)
10. [International Trade and Organizations, NBER Reporter (2010)](https://www.nber.org/reporter/2010number2/international-trade-and-organizations)
11. [Pol Antras, RePEc/IDEAS author page](https://ideas.repec.org/e/pan181.html)
12. [The Uncharted Waters of International Trade (JEEA 2025)](https://antras.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum5876/files/2025-02/Uncharted_JEEA.pdf)
13. [Top Economists by Weighted Citations, IDEAS/RePEc](https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.wdsccites.html)
14. [Pol Antras, CES Visiting Scholars, LMU Munich (June 2024)](https://www.en.ces.econ.uni-muenchen.de/ces-visiting-program/ces-visiting-scholars/2024/antras/index.html)
15. [De-Globalisation? Global Value Chains in the Post-COVID-19 Age (NBER WP 28115)](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28115/w28115.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Social and behavioral scientists › Macroeconomists and monetary economists › International trade economists*
*Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license