Low-income Countries are No Longer at the Losing End of the Competition for FDI

10th August 2017
KCG Secretary
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News
Foreign direct investment (FDI) “brings with it not only resources, but technology, access to markets, and (hopefully) valuable training, an improvement in human capital” (Stiglitz 2000: 1076). Thus, FDI has been widely recognised as being advantageous for helping integrate individuals, firms and countries into global value chains and therefore as being an important driver for sustained economic growth. Since the early 1990s UNCTAD has observed that the vast majority of policy measures relating to the entry and establishment of foreign investors aim at liberalizing and promoting FDI inflows, rather than restricting and regulating them[…]

How Global is FDI? Evidence from the Analysis of Theil Indices

10th August 2017
KCG Secretary
Authors: Frank Bickenbach, Wan-Hsin Liu and Peter Nunnenkamp (Empirical Economics, 2018, Vol. 55(4), 1603-1635)

It is open to question whether the intensified worldwide competition for FDI has reduced its traditionally strong concentration in a few large and relatively advanced host countries. We calculate and decompose Theil indices to track changes in absolute and relative concentration of FDI during the period 1970-2013. We find that both absolute and relative concentration decreased when excluding offshore financial centres from the overall sample. In addition to the narrowing gap between OECD and non-OECD countries, the concentration across non-OECD countries declined for both the absolute and relative measures[…]

External Research Fellows Join the KCG

27th July 2017
KCG Secretary
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News
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Nine excellent researchers from different universities and research organizations join the KCG as External Research Fellows: Prof. Alexander Wright Cappelen Ph.D. (Norwegian School of Economics, Norway), Prof. Sourafel Girma Ph.D. (University of Nottingham, UK), Prof. Dr. Stephan Kroll (Colorado State University, US), Dr. Michael Lee (University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand), Dr. Birgit Meyer (University of Vienna, Austria), Prof. Dr. Philipp M. Richter (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany), Adnan Seric Ph.D. (UNIDO, Austria), Prof. Ulrich Wagner Ph.D. (University of Mannheim, […]

Holger Görg and Frauke Steglich Joined the UNIDO-UIBE Workshop on Global Value Chains

20th July 2017
KCG Secretary
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News
KCG Managing Director Prof. Holger Görg Ph.D. and KCG PhD Researcher Frauke Steglich joined the UNIDO-UIBE Workshop on global value chains (GVCs) on July 11-12, 2017 in Vienna. The Workshop organized by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the University of International Business and Economics of China (UIBE) aimed at bringing together experts in global value chain research to discuss the general strategy, incl. main objectives, research methods and key outcomes, of the project “A Study on Global Value Chains and International Cooperation on Industrial Capacity with a Focus on China, South-East and South Asian Countries”. The main goal of the project is to provide more insights into the role of global value chains for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development (ISID), a key component of the Goal 9 of the Sustainable Development Goals, with a special focus on China and other Asian countries.[…]

Ludger Heidbrink Joined Discussion on Consumption at 3SAT

13th July 2017
KCG Secretary
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Publications
Prof. Dr. Ludger Heidbrink (Kiel University), KCG Senior Researcher and Co-Head of the KCG Project “Cross-cultural differences in the perception of corporate social responsibility and consumer social responsibility along global supply chains”, joined a TV discussion on consumption at 3SAT on June 29, 2017. At the discussion „I buy, therefore I am“ moderated by Gert Scobel, Heidbrink discussed with Prof. Frank Trentmann, Ph.D. (Birkbeck College, University of London) about the role of consumption in general and the meaning of responsible consumption in a globalized world in particular. The discussion is expected to encourage the audience to reflect on consumer ethics, the role of culture in economic globalization and potential solutions to the challenges related to the global consumer culture from different perspectives. […]

UNIDO/KCG Conference under the Auspices of T20 for Inclusive and Sustainable Development

6th July 2017
KCG Secretary
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News
The G20 Summit 2017 is going to be held on July 7-8, 2017 in Hamburg. When G20 was founded in 1999, it aimed at forming a platform for the governments of major economies in the world to discuss joint policies to deal with international financial stability challenges. Over time the G20 members have gradually broadened their goal from focusing on ensuring international financial stability and fostering economic growth to emphasising the key importance of having inclusive and sustainable development for all countries in the world. […]

South-South FDI: Is It Really Different?

4th July 2017
KCG Secretary
Authors: Robert Gold, Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley and Adnan Šerić (Review of World Economics, 2017, Vol. 153(4), 657-673)

We compare the performance of Northern and Southern multinationals in Sub-Saharan Africa, and contrast it with local firms in the host country. Employing unique firm level data for 19 Sub-Saharan African countries, we show that firms receiving FDI outperform domestic ones, while the origin of the foreign investor is of minor importance. We use four different definitions of “South” to compare Northern and Southern FDI. Overall, we do not find strong differences in terms of firm productivity growth between Northern and Southern FDI, irrespective of how the latter is defined. […]

UNIDO/KCG Conference on Inclusive and Sustainable Global Value Chains in September in Kiel

22nd June 2017
KCG Secretary
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News
The Kiel Centre for Globalization (KCG) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) will jointly organize a conference “Developing Inclusive and Sustainable Global Value Chains in the Digital Age” in September in Kiel, Germany. The Conference will be organized under the auspices of the T20 network – particularly the T20 Task Force on “Trade and Investment”. It builds on the Vienna Investment Conference: Quality FDI, Growth and Development which was jointly organized by UNIDO and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and held in Vienna last year. […]

Holger Görg: G20 May Support Developing Countries to Set up Functioning Investment Promotion Agencies

15th June 2017
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
In a new “Süddeutsche” article, Holger Görg suggests that G20 may help developing countries set up functioning investment promotion agencies, in order to attract not just FDI but Quality FDI to foster economic development in these countries. Empirical studies show clearly that being integrated into global supply chains as parts of multinational enterprises (MNEs) or their suppliers is advantageous for developing countries. Local firms involved have a higher level of productivity and are more capable of paying higher wages compared to other local firms without global engagement[…]