The economics of AI
Discussant on research tracking China’s growing AI innovative capacity, at the University of Toronto’s Economics of AI conference. Watch the discussion →
Ideas and Impact
Canada and more than 100 other countries are caught between two great powers. Trump’s America has abandoned international leadership for trade negotiations conducted through threats. Xi’s China pursues strategic autonomy, using the resulting supply-chain dominance to bully its trade partners. Meanwhile, Big Tech in both countries dominates AI and is writing the future of humanity.
For more than three decades, I have studied international trade and innovation alongside a larger question: what makes for broad-based prosperity? Over the past decade, I have also studied and used AI extensively. I use this experience to advise governments and international organizations on the policy choices that direct trade and AI in ways that generate rather than erode broad-based prosperity.
2026 — International Lectures
The Other AI Alignment Problem
AI alignment is usually couched in terms of aligning machines with human values. But that misses the question that comes first: how do we align the interests of the companies building AI with the interests of the societies they increasingly shape? The answer runs through scale, concentrated power, and the fabricated ethos governing AI.
Read the story →2025 — U.S. Supreme Court
From Op-Ed to Supreme Court
An op-ed I wrote with Marc Busch challenged the economic argument for Trump’s tariffs. Our op-ed was put before the US Supreme Court, bringing economic research into a dispute over the limits of presidential power.
Read the story →2021-2022 — Global Affairs Canada
WTO Reform: From Ideas to Action
By 2020, the United States and China were both using their economic power more aggressively, and countries such as Canada were too small to push back. Could the WTO be changed to give smaller countries another way forward?
Read the story →2025 — Canadian AI regulation
Regulating AI: When Should Government Step In?
At a major Canadian conference on AI regulation, I thought the debate had lost sight of AI’s enormous potential benefits. I proposed borrowing from banking regulation: let innovation flourish, but intensify oversight when AI becomes systemically important and creates systemic risk. Now the CEO of Anthropic thinks so too.
Read the story →2025 — Global Affairs Canada
Building Scale Through Diplomacy
The United States and China have scale. Most countries do not. Diplomatic Global Value Chains show how G-minus-2 countries can build scale collectively through reciprocal economic partnerships. The idea is gaining traction.
Read the story →2022-2025 — World Trade Organization
WTO Subsidy Reform: Confronting Great-Power Resistance
China's vast industrial subsidies and the revival of industrial policy in the United States and Europe were straining WTO subsidy rules. Working with the WTO's current and former chief economists, I helped assemble a team of leading economists and trade lawyers to develop reform proposals. Then came the harder part: getting those ideas in front of WTO decision-makers despite resistance from both great powers.
Read the story →Selected Activities
New Economics of Transformative AI
Publication of the new volume.
The CUSMA review
Panel discussion with Gordon Hanson at the Munk School.
AI and the future of international trade
Bai-QinXian University Lecture at Liaoning University, Shenyang, China.
The economic case for regulating AI
“An Economic Case for Regulating AI and Implications for Policy,” published in Canadian Public Policy.
Masters of Scale
W.A. Mackintosh Visiting Lectureship at Queen’s University: AI and our global future.
View earlier activities
Diplomatic Global Value Chains
O.D. Skelton Lecture at Global Affairs Canada, Ottawa.
AI and the global economy
Masters of Scale lectures for Rotman alumni in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Offshoring and innovation
Research presentations at LSE, UCL and Cambridge.
AI and cross-border data regulation
Keynote at the Institutions, Trade and Economic Development Workshop, University of Calgary.
US tariff powers
“Trump’s Lawyers Are Wrong About Section 122,” with Marc Busch, Council on Foreign Relations.
Trade and innovation
Research presentation at the European Research Workshop in International Trade, Oxford.
Artificial Intelligence—Seizing Opportunities
Closing remarks at the C.D. Howe Institute and CIFAR conference.
Trade rules in the AI era
Asia Global Institute Public Policy Lecture, University of Hong Kong.