Howard J. Shatz is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He specializes in international economics and economics and national security. His RAND research has included economic issues related to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine; economic competition and the U.S. role in the global economic order; great power competition in the Middle East; the Chinese and Russian economies; China-Israel relations; labor-market reform in Mongolia; the finances and management of the Islamic State and its predecessors; civil service reform, development policies, labor markets, and statistical systems in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq; and the development of socio-economic strategy by governments. From 2007 to 2008, he was on leave from RAND, serving as a senior economist at the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers. Shatz has written journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports on trade and labor markets, exchange rates and economic performance, the geography of international investment, services trade, and trade barriers and low-income countries. Before joining RAND, he was a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, where he focused on California and the global economy. Shatz has held research fellowships at the Brookings Institution and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and has worked as a consultant to the World Bank and on advisory projects for countries in Latin America, Africa, and South Asia. He holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University.

Research Focus

Previous Positions

Senior Economist, U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers; Research Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California

Recent Projects

  • The U.S. business community and U.S.-China economic policy
  • Global economic consequences of COVID-19
  • Economic competition in the 21st century
  • China, Russia, and the United States in the Middle East
  • China in the developing world

Selected Publications

Shatz, Howard J., Disruption Without Change: The Consequences of COVID-19 on the Global Economic Balance, RAND Corporation (RR-A1464-1), 2022

Wasser, Becca, Howard J. Shatz, John J. Drennan, Andrew Scobell, Brian G. Carlson, and Yvonne K. Crane, Crossroads of Competition: China, Russia, and the United States in the Middle East, RAND Corporation (RR-A325-1), 2022

Howard J. Shatz, Economic Competition in the 21st Century, RAND Corporation (RR-4188), 2020

Johnston, Patrick B., Mona Alami, Colin P. Clarke, and Howard J. Shatz, Return and Expand? The Finances and Prospects of the Islamic State After the Caliphate, RAND Corporation (RR-3046), 2019

Andrew Scobell, Bonny Lin, Howard J. Shatz, Michael Johnson, Larry Hanauer, Michael S. Chase, Astrid Stuth Cevallos, Ivan W. Rasmussen, Arthur Chan, Aaron Strong, Eric Warner, and Logan Ma, At the Dawn of Belt and Road: China in the Developing World , RAND Corporation (RR-2273), 2018

Howard J. Shatz, Louay Constant, Francisco Perez-Arce, Eric Robinson, Robin Beckman, Haijing Huang, Peter Glick, Bonnie Ghosh-Dastidar, Improving the Mongolian Labor Market and Enhancing Opportunities for Youth, RAND Corporation (RR-1092), 2015

Gustavo Bobonis, Howard J. Shatz, "Agglomeration, Adjustment, and State Policies in the Location of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, 89(1), 2007

Orley Ashenfelter, Stephen Ciccarella, Howard J. Shatz, "French Wine and the U.S. Boycott of 2003: Does Politics Really Affect Commerce?" Journal of Wine Economics, 2(1), 2007

Honors & Awards

  • 2013 Silver Merit Award, RAND Corporation
  • 2011 Gold Merit Award, RAND Corporation

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