Vinod K. Aggarwal (born November 26, 1953) is Distinguished Professor and holds the Alann P. Bedford Endowed Chair of Asian Studies in the Travers Department of Political Science. He is an Affiliated Professor in the Haas School of Business, and directs the Berkeley APEC Study Center (BASC).^[1] He is a visiting professor at INSEAD's Asia campus,^[2] a blogger for the Harvard Business Review,^[3] and has contributed to the New York Times.^[4] He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Business and Politics.^[5] Aggarwal is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international political economy. He has appeared on the Korean television show Great Minds in 2021 and in 2023-24.^[6] In addition, he appears regularly on American television.^[7]

In 2006, Aggarwal described Washington's selective trade policies as undermining the creation of an Asia-Pacific zone.^[8] He forecast that the mounting U.S. trade deficit with China would lead to failure in efforts to convert APEC into a Free Trade Area of the Pacific and said it would be "dead on arrival in Congress for the foreseeable future."^[8] Later, during the 2009 global recession of world markets, Aggarwal was a prominent critic of the Fortress Asia theory which speculated that East Asian countries such as China and Japan would align to become a protectionist trade bloc averse to Western imports.^[9] He has recently focused on technology conflict between the U.S. and China, arguing recently that President Biden’s efforts pursue high technology industrial policy would face serious domestic political problems.^[10]

Biography

Born in Seattle, Washington, Aggarwal received his bachelor's degree in both political science and psychology from the University of Michigan in 1975, and his M.A in political science and Ph.D. in international political economy from Stanford University.^[11] Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1980, he was a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank based in Washington, D.C.^[11]

Aggarwal has been influential in the fields of U.S. trade policy, corporate strategy, international trade institutions, globalization, international debt rescheduling, international political economy, and international relations. His research expertise includes the international politics of trade, international finance, comparative public policy, rational choice, and bargaining theory. Frequently, he has been sought out in these areas by the private and public sector.^[12]

He has worked with a number of Fortune 500 corporations such as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, and Qualcomm, as well as other companies including Herman Miller, Italcementi, ARCO, and Nestle. Aggarwal was named Chief Economist for the global growth consulting firm Frost and Sullivan.^[13] In the public sector, Aggarwal has consulted with the U.S. Department of Commerce, World Trade Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Group of Thirty (G30), IFAD, the International Labour Organization, ASEAN, and the World Bank.

In November 2008, Dr. Aggarwal addressed the APEC CEO Summit in Lima, Peru. That same year, he was an Abe Fellow with the Japan Foundation for 2008–2009. He is a fellow with the Center for Globalisation Research at the University of London, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a founding member of the United States Asia Pacific Council. In 2003–2004, Aggarwal was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in which he researched the pursuit of multiple modes of trade liberalization on the stability of the world trading system.^[14] He regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on international political economy, international relations, and business and public policy. Aggarwal was the recipient of the Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award from the Haas School of Business for Ph.D. teaching in 1997. In 2003 he was first runner-up^[15] for the Cheit Award for MBA teaching and won in 2005 first place.^[16]

Publications