James Alan Brander (born 1953) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

and a professor of Asia-Pacific International Trade,

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

. He is known as co-author of a seminal 1986 article in ''

The American Economic Review The ''American Economic Review'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal first published by the American Economic Association in 1911. The current editor-in-chief is Erzo FP Luttmer, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College. The journal i ...

'', with Tracy R. Lewis, on "

Oligopoly An oligopoly () is a market in which pricing control lies in the hands of a few sellers. As a result of their significant market power, firms in oligopolistic markets can influence prices through manipulating the supply function. Firms in ...

and Financial Structure: The Limited Liability Effect", as well as his work in international trade with

Barbara Spencer Barbara J. Spencer is an Australian-Canadian economist. Spencer received her Bachelor of Economics in 1967 at Australian National University, her Masters of Economics in 1970 at Monash University, and her Ph.D. in 1979 at Carnegie Mellon Unive ...

, particularly the

Brander–Spencer model The Brander–Spencer model is an economics, economic model in international trade originally developed by James Brander and Barbara Spencer in the early 1980s. The model illustrates a situation where, under certain assumptions, a government can su ...

, in which a government can enhance national welfare by subsidizing domestic firms to aid in their competition against foreign markets

Education and work

Brander studied as an undergraduate at the

Point Grey Point Grey () is a headland marking the southern entrance to English Bay and Burrard Inlet in British Columbia, Canada. The headland is the site of Wreck Beach, Tower Beach, Point Grey Beach and most notably, since 1925, on its top is the Poin ...

campus of the University of British Columbia at the UBC Department of Economics, in 1975, which is among the best in Canada; then received an MA (1978) and a PhD (1979) from Stanford University. He was an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Queen's University from 1979 to 1984 before moving back to the University of British Columbia. His 1981 paper with Barbara Spencer, ''Tariffs and the Extraction of Foreign Monopoly Rents Under Potential Entry'', won the Harry Johnson Prize of the ''Canadian Journal of Economics''. By 1998, Brander's work had been cited over 1000 times. He is a former managing editor of the ''

Canadian Journal of Economics The ''Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics published quarterly by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Canadian Economics Association. In 1967 the journal was established from ...

'' (1997–2001) and a former co-editor of the ''

Journal of International Economics The ''Journal of International Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of economics. The journal publishes articles on both theoretical and empirical aspects of international economics. Various topics covered include trade pa ...

'' (1990–96), and he was a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1983 to 2002. He was president of the

Canadian Economics Association The Canadian Economics Association (CEA) is the academic association of Canadian economists. Its object is to advance economic knowledge through study and research, and to encourage informed discussion of economic questions. The Association will n ...

for 2009–10, and he was awarded the association's highest academic honour when he was inducted as a CEA Fellow.

Economic theory

Brander and Lewis proposed a duopoly model in which it might be rational for the managers of a

corporation A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

to load up on debt, to a degree that would be socially dysfunctional. In the model, management might deliberately incur debts in order to wed its interests to those of the shareholders and pursue with their support a risky low-margin, high-output strategy that in turn may gain market share. This gamble has a chance of success if the other duopolist is low-risk, and would rather leave the market than engage in a price-cutting war. On the other hand, if both duopolists adopt the same approach, though, the result is that they are both worse off than if neither had. Furthermore, that result will have negative social utility—the affected market will resemble the recent airline industry in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

Personal life

Brander grew up in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...

. His wife is his collaborator, Barbara Spencer, whom he met while they were at Queen's University. He is an ice hockey fan and wrote a mathematical analysis of Vancouver's teams.

Bibliography

*Brander, James A. and Jeffrey M. Perloff. 2016. Managerial Economics and Strategy. 2nd ed. Pearson:Harlow. *Brander, James A. 2013. Government Policy towards Business. 5th ed. Wiley:Toronto. *Brander, James A. 1986. "Rationales for Strategic Trade and Industrial Policy," in Paul R. Krugman, ed., Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics. MIT Press.

References

External links

Brander's site at the University of British Columbia

from

RePEc Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in many countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics. The heart of the project is a decentralized database of working papers, preprints, ...