Assaf Razin

Assaf Razin is a international economist, academic, and author. He is a Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University, and former Professor of International Economics at Cornell University.

Razin is known for his works on international economics and public economics. His written works include contributions to top scientific  journals like the American Economic Review, Journal of Monetary Economics and the Journal of Political Economy, as well as authoring  books such as International Taxation, Fiscal Policies and Growth in the World Economy, Population Economics, Israel and the World Economy: Power of Globalization and Globalization, and Transition to Illiberal Democracy: Economic Drivers and Consequences.

He is the recipient of 2017 EMET Prize in Economics and is a Fellow  of the Econometric Society.

Early life and education
Assaf Razin's parents arrived in Israel in the late 1930s from Bessarabia in pre-WWII war Romania (now Moldova and Ukraine) and founded Kibbutz Shamir where Razin's early life unfolded, shaped by its communal ethos and its remote location as a border settlement. Assaf Razin was born and raised in Kibbutz Shamir, on the slopes of the Golan Heights. A tragic incident during his military service led to unexpected opportunities beyond the kibbutz's strict confines. This pivotal event paved the way for his unconventional transition from living in a border agricultural settlement to pursuing higher education and eventually graduate studies at the University of Chicago. Contrary to the collectivistic kibbutz rules against having its members equipped with formal university education, Razin was singled out to attend university due to his military-caused disability. Razin studied undergraduate economics at the  Hebrew University. After being admitted to graduate studies at the University of Chicago, he completed a PhD in Economics there in 1969. With a few policy-making engagements, he concentrated on academic work at leading universities worldwide.

Career
Razin holds extensive academic experience as a professor at various elite Universities in the US, from his permanent base at Tel Aviv University, Israel. His first academic job was at the economics Department of the University of Minnesota as an assistant Professor. A year later He joined Tel Aviv University which has been his academic homebase throughout his career. Throughout his academic career, he has held various visiting appointments at various institutions, including University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Stanford, University of Minnesota, London School of Economics, the University of Munich, Yale University, and Princeton University. Since 2008, he is a Professor Emeritus at Tel-Aviv University. In the years 2000 to 2015 he held the position of the Friedman Professor of International Economics at Cornell University.

Razin's academic administrative experience includes an appointment as the Chair of the Department of Economics at Tel Aviv University from 1974 to 1976. Subsequently, he held the position of dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Tel Aviv University from 1981 to 1986, and Deputy Rector in the early 1990s. Among Razin's policy-making engagements, he served in the late 1970s as the chief economic adviser to the Israeli government. Throughout his career, Razin has held diverse advisory appointments at institutions such as the World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, Bank of England and the European Central Bank.

Books
In addition to about 150 scientific articles in economic Journals, Razin has authored various books and monographs throughout his career. In 1978, he co-authored the book A Theory of International Trade Under Uncertainty with Elhanan Helpman. The book explored how the basic theories of international trade are extended and revised in the presence of uncertainty and risk-sharing financial institutions. In 1987, he co-authored a book with Jacob A. Frenkel, Fiscal Policies in the World Economy. The book provided an intertemporal -based analysis of fiscal policies and their effects on economic growth in the global context, integrating traditional and modern approaches in open economy macroeconomics and public economics, with a focus on topics such as government spending, budget deficits, international taxation, and economic convergence across countries.

Razin's books on the Israeli economy, the economy of Modern Israel: Malaise and Promise (1993), and Israel and the World Economy: The Power of Globalization (2018), explore the effects of immigration, building of economic institutions, technological advancement, and controlling inflation generated the "economic miracle" whereby Israel transformed from a low-income agricultural economy into a fully advanced economy.” He recently edited and contributed to the e-book,

He co-authored with Jacob Frenkel and Efraim Sadka, International Economics, which provides analytical theory for the international ramifications of income and value-added taxation, and with Efraim Sadka, the book Population Economics, The latter, explored the evolution of economic theories (such as Malthusian and Becker theories, on population growth, focusing on microeconomic factors such as fertility decisions, labor supply, and intergenerational transfers, and their implications for economic policy and social issues. He also  authored the book Labor, Capital, and Finance: International Flows. The book integrated disparate elements of economics into a unified framework, focusing on capital, labor, and finance within globalization. In his 2011 book, he examined the interplay between immigration policies, welfare states, and economic dynamics, considering factors such as skill and age composition of immigrants, fiscal burdens, and the implications for both host and source countries, particularly focusing on Europe and developed nations. His book Understanding Global Crises offers a comprehensive analysis of various global financial crises, integrating common and disparate threads into an empirically testable analytical framework while exploring developments in the New Keynesian analytical framework post-2008. Furthermore, his more recent book Globalization, Migration, and Welfare State: Macroeconomic Trifecta explores the intricate interplay between globalization, migration, and the welfare state. Recently, Assaf Razin put out the e-book ''The Transition to Illiberal Democracy Economic Drivers and Consequences. The book unveils the insidious mechanisms employed by autocratic regimes to consolidate power and their consequences, from economic fault lines such as education gaps and identity politics, laying on religion and demography, to judicial overhaul, weakened growth, the emergence of de facto power, media manipulation, faltering foreign investment, and distortion of financial stability.''

Research
Razin's research covers various aspects of international economics, including: Trade Balance Dynamics: He explores how trade balances evolve in response to economic policies, exchange rate movements, and global economic conditions. His work often employs rational expectations models to analyze these dynamics. Capital Flows and International Finance: Razin has studied the effects of capital mobility on economic stability and growth, examining how capital flows influence exchange rates, interest rates, and investment patterns. Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Stability: He has analyzed the impact of fiscal policies on macroeconomic stability, particularly in open economies. His research studies how government borrowing and spending affect national and global economic performance. Razin's early research established a link between population theory and economic growth theory by analyzing an intergenerational model of optimum population growth, considering factors such as the quality of life for new populations, consumption levels, public support for investment in children, intergenerational differences in preferences, and uncertainty in population changes. His 1983 collaborative research with LEO Svensson and others analyzed the impact of terms-of-trade changes on a small country's spending and current account under perfect international capital mobility and an intertemporal framework, considering both temporary and permanent fluctuations and the influence of individuals' time preferences on trade balance outcomes. In his 1986 study, he employed a two-country general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of budget deficits and government spending on global interest rates, consumption, and international indebtedness, exploring the differences between fiscal expenditures and tax cuts, current versus expected future policies, and the welfare implications of budget deficits.

Razin's 1991 research examined global capital income taxation and tax competition, showing that coordinated policies reduce the need for tax harmonization, whereas insufficient coordination results in lower capital taxes and burdens on immobile factors, limiting effective tax tools. Later in 1994, he proposed a method to compute effective tax rates using national accounts and revenue data, highlighting international differences in tax policy and demonstrating the consistency of these rates with general equilibrium economic frameworks. His 2000 study investigated factors influencing large adjustments in current account deficits and exchange rates in low- and middle-income countries, distinguishing between triggers of currency crises and current account reversals, finding that domestic and external factors play key roles with different economic impacts. In 2006, he developed a theoretical model explaining how information asymmetry influences the choice between foreign direct investments (FDI) and foreign portfolio investments (FPI), highlighting how investors' information advantages impact investment decisions, resale prices, and the observed patterns of investment flows across developed and developing countries. While exploring how welfare state generosity affects migration rates, his 2015 study found that within free labor movement areas like the EU, welfare states attract skilled migrants, while in restricted migration contexts, they may draw unskilled migrants, potentially increasing fiscal burdens. More recently in 2022, his work offered a nuanced analysis of how income-based globalization attitudes interact with national government policies, shedding light on the complex relationship between economic interests, trade dynamics, and welfare-state outcomes in the context of a globalized economy.

Awards and honors

 * 1994 – Fellow of the Econometric Society
 * 2017 – EMET Prize in Economics
 * 2022 – Fellow, International Economic Association

Family
Assaf Razin's parents Mordechai Razin (formerly, Berezin; born in Kishinev, Moldova)) and Dora Leibovitch (born in Yasi, Romania) who immigrated to Israel just before WWII, were among the few dozen founders in 1938 of Kibbutz Shamir, where he was born and raised.

Assaf Razin is married to Shula Razin. Their children are Ofer Razin (deceased,1999), Ronny Razin, and Einat Razin; his grandchildren are Iddo Razin and Neeve Razin. Ronny Razin, married to Daphna Sharf-Razin, is a Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, Iddo Razin and Neeve Razin live in London. Einat Razin lives in Tel Aviv. Assaf Razin's siblings are Ehud Razin, a Professor of Immunology at the Hebrew University, and Hava Zamir.

Selected books

 * A Theory International Trade under Uncertainty
 * International Taxation in an Integrated World
 * Population Economics
 * Current Account Sustainability
 * Fiscal Policies in the World Economy
 * The Economy of Modern Israel: Malaise and Promise
 * Israel and the World Economy: The Power of Globalization
 * Labor, Capital, and Finance: International Flows (2001) ISBN 9780521785570
 * Understanding Global Crises: An Emerging Paradigm (2014) ISBN 9780262028592

Selected articles
Razin, A. and J. Whaba, (2014), Welfare Magnet Hypothesis, Fiscal Burden and Immigration Skill-Selectivity, Scandinavian Journal of Economics
 * Razin, A. (1973) Optimum investment in human capital, The Review of Economic Studies 39 (4), 455-460.
 * Razin, A and U Ben-Zion, (1974) An intergenerational model of population growth, The American Economic Review 65 (5), 923-933.
 * Razin, A., E Sadka and P 2001) The aging population and the size of the welfare state, Journal of Political Economy 110 (4), 900-918
 * Svensson, L. E., & Razin, A. (1983). The terms of trade and the current account: The Harberger-Laursen-Metzler effect. Journal of political Economy, 91(1), 97–125.
 * Frenkel, J. A., & Razin, A. (1986). Fiscal policies in the world economy. Journal of Political Economy, 94(3, Part 1), 564–594.
 * Razin, A., & Sadka, E. (1991). International tax competition and gains from tax harmonization. Economics Letters, 37(1), 69–76.
 * Mendoza, E. G., Razin, A., & Tesar, L. L. (1994). Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption. Journal of Monetary Economics, 34(3), 297–323.
 * Loungani, P., & Razin, A. (2001). How beneficial is foreign direct investment for developing countries? Finance and development, 38(2), 6–9.