Nathan Nunn

Biography

Nathan Nunn is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Harvard University. Professor Nunn was born in Canada, where he received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2005. His primary research interests are in economic history, economic development, political economy and international trade. He is an NBER Faculty Research Fellow, an Affiliate of BREAD, and a Faculty Associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA). He is also currently an associate editor for the Canadian Journal of Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of International Economics, and Review of Economics and Statistics. In 2009, Professor Nunn was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and grant recipient.

One stream of his research focuses on the long-term impact that historic events can have on current economic development. In “Historical Legacies: A Model Linking Africa’s Past to its Current Underdevelopment”, published in the Journal of Development Economics in 2007, Nunn develops a game-theoretic model showing how the slave trade and colonial rule could have had permanent long-term effects on economic performance. In “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades” (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2008), Nunn documents the long-term adverse economic effects of Africa’s slave trades. In "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa" (American Economic Review, 2011), coauthored with Leonard Wantchekon, he empirically documents how the slave trade engendered a culture of mistrust amongst the descendants of those heavily threatened by the slave trade.

His current research continues to examine the importance of historical events for current economic development. In "The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas" (Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2011) and "The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence from a Historical Experiment" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2010), both coauthored with Nancy Qian, Nunn examines the long-term impacts of the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus.

A second stream of Professor Nunn’s research focuses on the importance of hold-up and incomplete contracting in international trade. He has published research showing that a country’s ability to enforce written contracts is a key determinant of comparative advantage (“Relationship-Specificity, Incomplete Contracts and the Pattern of Trade,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2007). Other work, coauthored with Daniel Trefler, examines the relationship between the cross-industry structure of a country's tariffs and its long-term economic growth (“The Structure of Tariffs and Long-Term Growth,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2010). The study identifies growth promoting benefits of a tariff structure focused in skill-intensive industries. It also shows how and why governments that succumb to political influence and rent-seeking are unable to focus tariffs in these key industries.

A final stream of his research examines the importance of international factors for countries' economic development. In "Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade During the Cold War" (American Economic Review, forthcoming), he empirically examines the impact of CIA interventions that installed and propped-up U.S.-friendly regimes during the Cold War. In other work with Nancy Qian, he examines the impact of U.S. food aid, showing that greater aid delivery is associated with more conflict in recipient countries (see "Aiding Conflict: The Impact of U.S. Food Aid on Civil War").