Philip A. Luck

I study how trade, investment, and migration shape the global economy, and what happens to it as governments increasingly treat commerce as an instrument of security. The work runs in three registers: academic research, policy analysis, and, for two and a half years, the practice of making policy. My research has appeared in leading journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Labor Economics. I write for CSIS and Lawfare, and my research and analysis are cited in the New York Times, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.

I direct the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where I hold the Scholl Chair in International Business, and I serve as an associate editor at the Journal of Geoeconomics. From 2022 to 2025 I was Deputy Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of State, and Acting Chief Economist from late 2023 into 2024. There I led analysis on sanctions and export-control evasion, supply chain resilience, economic coercion, and the design of migration policy.

Before government I taught at the University of Colorado Denver and Drexel University; my Ph.D. in economics is from the University of California, Davis.

Research interests

• International trade
• Geoeconomics
• Global supply chains
• Offshoring & skill demand
• Labor markets
• Migration policy