I am currently a second year PhD candidate at CREST (Ecole Polytechnique, ENSAE) supervised by Prof. Roland Rathelot and Prof. Arne Uhlendorff. I am also a research affiliate at IPP. 

During my first year I was a research economist at the Institut des Politiques Publiques (CREST, Paris School of Economics) in its labor market division.

My research focuses on labor economics, econometrics and policy evaluation. I also study research questions in international trade.  

More precisely, my research in labor economics focuses on job seekers’ search behavior, unemployment insurance (its effects on job seekers' search mechanisms, workers, and its design), and information frictions in the hiring process. I also provide research consultancy to the European Investment Bank on trade-related issues, especially trade dependencies. 

I am the director, founder and editor in chief of Oeconomicus, an online journal that promotes the results of economic research, makes it accessible to public debate, and brings together actors of the academic community and institutions to enhance the understanding of (research in) economics.


Contact me by mail pierre.rousseaux@ensae.fr/pierre.rousseaux@polytechnique.edu

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Check here to see a page dedicated to trade vulnerabilities (methodologies, EU analysis, EU-country analysis)


Summary: This contribution analyzes the EU’s trade vulnerabilities from 2002 onwards, identifying critical imported products and their impact on value chains. Using the European Commission’s methodology combined with new criteria from Mejean and Rousseaux (2024), it highlights a growing dependence on specific suppliers, particularly China, whose share in EU trade dependencies has increased while those of the US and the rest of the world have declined by 3 to 10 percentage points. The study shows that the most critical vulnerabilities lie upstream in value chains, with 49% of vulnerable products situated more than three stages from final consumption, meaning supply disruptions could severely impact European industries. Moreover, trade dependencies are structurally concentrated in key sectors such as chemicals, metals, and ceramics, which are essential for strategic industries. These vulnerabilities persist over time, making targeted policy responses crucial. While some affect consumer goods with limited consequences, the most concerning ones involve essential industrial inputs, where disruptions pose systemic risks. To address these challenges, the study underscores the need for a balanced resilience strategy, combining supplier diversification, local production, and industrial coordination. Managing the trade-off between resilience and free trade is essential to avoid excessive costs while ensuring the EU’s economic security.

Evolution of trade dependencies imported by the EU27 between 2002 and 2022, by methodologies.

Source: EIB Investment Report 2024/2025, Chapter 5, Box C (P. Rousseaux)

Evolution of the upstreamness of trade dependencies imported by the EU27 between 2002 and 2022, by methodologies.

Source: EIB Investment Report 2024/2025, Chapter 5, Box C (P. Rousseaux)

CEPR Bruegel Paris Report, Reports webpage,  CEPR's Paris Symposium 2023

Media: Bruegel's podcast, VOXeu Column, CRESTive Columns

Seminar: Seminar: CEPII-Banque de France Competitiveness Seminar

Abstract: We review and extend upon existing literature using product-level trade data to identify trade dependencies that expose the European Union to potential disruptions. While acknowledging the  significance of concentrated foreign input sourcing as a source of vulnerability, a comprehensive assessment of vulnerabilities should also consider the potential for substituting away from disrupted  input sources, both domestically and abroad. This may necessitate devising novel statistical measures at the European level. We present a novel methodology that identifies trade dependencies  by integrating these substitution sources. Our review encompasses normative arguments justifying  public interventions to improve the resilience of value chains. We intersect our identified dependencies with a measure of geopolitical risk, their upstreamness in the value chain, and also focus  on critical products and strategic green technologies. The specific targeting of these policies varies depending on the nature of risks they aim to mitigate. Finally, we discuss the range of policy tools available for crafting a resilience policy.

This figure sequentially shows how our additional criteria impact the set of vulnerabilities imported by the EU. Beginning with 5,381 products imported by the consolidated EU from 2015-2019 (we aggregate trade and production data to focus on persistent dependencies), the European Commission's three criteria (from its "bottom-up approach") identify 378 vulnerable products. Restricting the set to products for which 50% of domestic absorption is satisfied by extra-EU imports reduces it to 228 products. Finally, by considering ex-post substitutability in the event of a shock affecting these products, we identify 49 strategic dependencies after narrowing down to those (among the 228) with very low substitutability between suppliers. This last set of vulnerabilities accounts for 0.5% of the EU's total imports.