Jeffrey Bergstrand

Jeffrey Bergstrand is a Professor of Finance at the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, with concurrent roles as Professor of Economics (College of Arts and Letters) and Professor in the Keough School of Global Affairs. He is also a Faculty Fellow at the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Bergstrand’s research focuses on international trade, foreign direct investment, multinational firm behavior, and real exchange rates, with foundational contributions to the gravity equation model. He has advised governments (U.S., EU, Switzerland) on trade policy and economic integration agreements, influencing policy analyses worldwide. His work spans over 50 peer-reviewed articles in top journals like the American Economic Review and Journal of International Economics. His methodologies underpin the gravity equation, widely used in studying trade flows, FDI, and policy impacts. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981) and joined Notre Dame in 1986.

Education: Ph.D. in Economics (UW-Madison, 1981); M.A. in Economics (UW-Madison, 1979); B.A. in Economics and Political Science (Northwestern University, 1974). Teaching: MBA and Executive MBA programs at Notre Dame, with awards for teaching excellence.

Research Interests:

• Gravity Equation Applications
• Economic Integration Agreements (EIAs)
• Trade Policy Analysis
• FDI Determinants
• Regional Economic Integration
• Real Exchange Rate Dynamics

Publications: Over 50 articles and book chapters since 1985, with recent focus on heterogeneous effects of EIAs, deep trade agreement impacts, and policy implications. Key works include Understanding Globalization Through the Lens of Gravity (2019) and the NSF-Kellogg EIA database (2004–present).

Grants & Projects: Co-PI of the NSF-funded database on economic integration agreements (1950–2017), analyzing treaty impacts across 195 countries. This database uniquely indexes EIAs on a 0–6 scale and provides treaty documentation for most entries.

Labs/Teams: Lead researcher for the NSF-Kellogg Institute database project, collaborating with institutions like Clemson University and the European Commission.