Joseph Pelzman has over 30 years of experience specializing on issues relating to trade capacity building, the development of and testing of workable free-trade area agreements and on delinking trade liberalization from fiscal tax issues. He has been involved in numerous international projects including a program and legislation for a Fair Trade Commission for the Government of Barbados, a modeling framework for assessing tax deferral systems as Section 936 was being discontinued for Puerto Rico, and a framework of reviewing fiscal reform packages in support of trade liberalization for Morocco and Jamaica. Some of his current published work includes a study of the Enforcement Issues of the Dispute Settlement Understanding under current WTO procedures, a study of the US negotiation of CAFTA and FTAA in a sequential bargaining context, a study of Regional Incentive Systems both in the Middle East and in Puerto Rico, as they apply to the sunrise industries, a study of post-MFA competition of the PRC with Vietnam and India and an assessment of an effective model of providing tariff liberalization without incurring a reduction in fiscal funding in the MENA region.

Professor Pelzman teaches International Trade Theory, International Trade Law, Law and Economics and Middle-East Economics. He holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School, a Ph.D., Economics from Boston College and a B.S., Economics from Boston College. He also studied Russian & East European area studies at Harvard University.