Robert A. Blecker
Robert A. Blecker is an American economist who is currently a Professor in the Department of Economics at American University in Washington, DC. He is also Affiliate Faculty of the American University School of International Service and Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, and a Research Associate at the Economic Policy Institute and Political Economy Research Institute. His research has made contributions to the fields of post-Keynesian and neo-Kaleckian macroeconomics, open economy macroeconomics, international trade theory and policy, global imbalances and the U.S. trade deficit, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the economy of  Mexico, export-led growth, and the theory of balance-of-payments constrained growth (also known as Thirlwall's Law). Career. Education. Blecker was born in Philadelphia, PA, USA, on November 17, 1956. He attended Central High School of Philadelphia and graduated from Springfield Township High School, Montgomery County, PA in 1974. Blecker received a B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1978, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 1983 and 1987. He also took courses in the Master's program in economics at El Colegio de México in 1978-79 under a Fulbright scholarship. American  University awarded Blecker its Faculty Awards for Outstanding Teaching in 2005 and for Outstanding Service to the University Community in 2014. Professional Activity. Blecker is a member of the editorial boards of the "International Review of Applied Economics", "Review of Keynesian Economics", "European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Investigación Económica" (published by the UNAM Faculty of Economics in Mexico City), and "Metroeconomica". Blecker is perhaps best known for his work on the theory of demand-led growth in open economies, starting with his article in the "Cambridge Journal of Economics" in 1989. This article showed the possibility of  both wage-led and profit-led demand regimes based on a country's exposure to international competition, parallel to a similar analysis for closed economies published around the same time by Amit Bhaduri and Stephen Marglin.