Podcast interview with Görg on U.S.-China Deal on Rare Earths

17th September 2025
KCG Secretary
Public Contributions
Public Contributions
In June this year, high-ranking representatives from the United States and China met in London for the second time amid escalating trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The talks resulted in a reaffirmation of the Geneva agreement reached in May, including a substantial 90-day suspension of punitive tariffs. China agreed to resume shipments of critical raw materials and to grant temporary export licenses to U.S. firms. In response, the U.S. side signaled a conditional willingness to ease restrictions on technology exports[...]

Special economic zone dynamics and firm performance: Evidence from an emerging economy

17th September 2025
KCG Secretary
Authors: Charles Godfred Ackah, Robert Darko Osei, Baah Aye Kusi (Management and Decision Economics 2025, 45(6): 3834–3851)

The empirical literature on Special economic zones (SEZs) has shown that SEZs have become critical policy tools for advancing economic and firm performance, especially in developing economies where financial capital, human capital, technology and technical know-how to drive these performances are in limited supply. While the importance and effects of SEZs cannot be overemphasised and are well documented, particularly in Asia, SEZs' operationalisation, structure and policy practice appear to vary, especially in Ghana and hence a need to examine SEZ effects on firm performance in Ghana.

Big Data Analytics and Exports—Evidence for Manufacturing Firms from 27 EU Countries

1st September 2025
KCG Secretary
Authors: Joachim Wagner (Open Economies Review 2025, 36: 825–834)

Divestments by foreign multinationals are an important phenomenon that is largely neglected in the literature. We use firm level panel data from China to estimate the impact of such divestments on the performance of domestic firms in the local economy. To the best of our knowledge, there is no empirical study that has looked at these effects[...]

Research Grant Extended: Kiel Research Project on Environmental Impact of Global Producers in China

31st July 2025
KCG Secretary
Further KCG Projects
Further KCG Projects
In recent years, marked by growing economic tensions and geopolitical conflicts, foreign direct investment (FDI) in individual—often authoritarian—countries such as China has come under increasing scrutiny. At the same time, China as one of the world’s most attractive destinations for FDI in the past decades, is nowadays the largest emitter of Carbon dioxide (CO2)[...]

New Project on Global Affiliate Structure of German Firms and their Resilience against Shocks

18th July 2025
KCG Secretary
Further KCG Projects
Further KCG Projects
For decades, the world experienced extensive trade liberalization and deepening globalization, during which firms built and expanded their global production networks. However, this trend began to reverse following the 2008 financial crisis, as national policies have increasingly shifted toward protectionism. This trend has been further intensified due to natural disasters, climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, and, particularly, geopolitical events such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rising tensions between the US and China[...]

New Policy Brief on Significance and Policy Implications of EU-U.S. Services Trade

17th July 2025
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Trade in services is an important component of international trade and is becoming increasingly more important with growth rates exceeding the rates with which goods trade increases. This is also true in the bilateral U.S. – EU relationship: Trade in services, and especially trade in digitally deliverable services, is a highly important element of the economic relations between the U.S. and the EU. And it is growing much faster than goods trade between the two economies. Despite its importance, trade in services has received much less attention in political and public discussions on the transatlantic trade relationship[...]

Special Economic Zones Policies Contribute to Urbanization and Inclusive Growth in Africa

1st July 2025
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Fishing boats on the shore of Cape Coast, Ghana
There has been an increasing number of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in Africa since the early 1990s. While there were only around 20 SEZs in the early 1990s in Africa, the number amounted to more than 200 zones all over Africa in 2021. These zones are established to “promote local economic development and reduce regional disparities” (Abagna et al., 2025: 1). In policy debates and academic research, little attention has been paid so far to the impact of SEZ on the households’ welfare development in Africa[...]

Bring the boys back home: The impact of foreign divestments on local firms

27th June 2025
KCG Secretary
Authors: Holger Görg, Haiou Mao, Nigel Driffield (The World Economy, forthcoming)

Divestments by foreign multinationals are an important phenomenon that is largely neglected in the literature. We use firm level panel data from China to estimate the impact of such divestments on the performance of domestic firms in the local economy. To the best of our knowledge, there is no empirical study that has looked at these effects[...]