Philip A. Luck

About

I am an economist studying the global economy — how trade, investment, and migration shape it, and how the growing securitization of commerce is reshaping the economic and political world around us. My work spans academic research, policy analysis, and service as a policymaker. My research has appeared in leading journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Labor Economics, and my writing has been published 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 was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver, with earlier appointments at Claremont McKenna College and Drexel University. I hold M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of California, Davis, where Robert Feenstra chaired my dissertation, and a B.S. with honors from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I also consult for the International Monetary Fund and serve as vice chair of the OECD Committee on Industry, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Research interests

• International trade
• Geoeconomics
• Economic security
• Global supply chains
• Offshoring & skill demand
• Labor markets
• Firm & entrepreneurship dynamics
• Migration policy