Publications

The KCG has various series of publications to provide research findings and policy implications to different interested groups, e.g., students, academics, policy makers and the public. The list of publications will be updated on a regular basis and is available as a PDF file here.

KCG Working Paper No. 3: South-South FDI: Is It Really Different?

26th May 2017
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Authors: Robert Gold, Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley and Adnan Seric

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. We also find that employment growth is generally higher for firms receiving FDI from other African investors as compared to Northern FDI, and they also receive more technology transfer from their parent company abroad.

KCG Working Paper No. 2: Firms’ Global Engagement and Management Practices

27th April 2017
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Authors: Holger Görg and Aoife Hanley

We investigate whether firms’ "global engagement", either in the form of exporting or opening up affiliates abroad, is related to the change in their management performance. We use new and unique data from a recent large scale firm survey of management practices in Germany. We calculate management scores for firms as in Bloom et al. (2013), which indicate how structured management is in a given firm .[…]

KCG Policy Paper No.2: How to Attract Quality FDI?

14th February 2017
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Authors: Theodore H. Moran, Holger Görg, Adnan Seric and Christiane Krieger‐Boden

Foreign direct investment in developing countries has got a bad reputation in some popular discussions where it is set tantamount to first world’s postcolonial exploitation of the raw materials and cheap labour from the third world, associated with pictures of leaking oil fields and collapsing factories. While this does happen, data show that FDI[…]

Key Relevance of Global Supply Chains in Discussing whether Globalization is Good or not

9th February 2017
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Is globalization good or not? This question has already attracted much attention worldwide with the intensifying globalization during the past decades. Undoubtedly, different economic agents, decision makers and governments from different countries may have strongly different answers to this seemingly simple question. This question turns, however, to be answered in a very simple and provocative way for political purposes over the last year, as did, for example, by Donald Trump on his way to the U.S. Presidency. His belief in globalization doing more harm than good to the U.S. economy induced him to stop ongoing discussions on trade agreements such as TPP and TTIP with different partners in the world[…]

Merits of Financial Market Development for Developing Countries

30th December 2016
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Financial market development has its impact on economic development wide beyond national boundaries. Here multinational enterprises (MNEs) play a crucial role. Recent empirical studies carried out by Görg and Kersting (2016) and Donaubauer et al. (2016) found, among others, that:

Well-developed financial markets, either in source or host countries, foster bilateral foreign direct investment. Well-developed financial markets in source countries compensate for poorly developed financial systems […]

KCG Studies about Standards along the Global Supply Chains

24th November 2016
KCG Secretary
A new KCG study (Görg et al., forthcoming) addressing multinational enterprises (MNEs) with production sites in Africa shows that MNEs are indeed able to influence the working and production conditions of their suppliers in Africa, if the MNEs are motivated to do so. For example, production conditions of MNEs are found to be established in a more sustainable way in Africa, if their products were exported to developed countries such as to Europe or the USA, compared to having been exported to less developed countries like China[…]



A Recent KN Report on KCG

17th November 2016
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
With the official start of the Kiel Centre for Globalisation (KCG), the Kieler Nachrichten (KN) recently published a report on the research focus and the planned activities of the KCG based on an interview with Prof. Holger Görg. As emphasised by Prof. Görg, over the past decades of globalisation some people have won but others have lost and there have been some undesirable side effects. Thus, the main focus of the KCG is not only to gain more insights into how globalisation actually has worked but also how trade and global division of labour can be arranged in a more sustainable and fairer way in the future[…]

KCG Policy Paper No. 1: Quality FDI and Supply-Chains in Manufacturing: Overcoming Obstacles and Supporting Development

16th November 2016
KCG Secretary
Publications
Publications
Authors: Theodore H. Moran, Holger Görg and Adnan Seric

This paper aims to identify the obstacles to attracting “quality” foreign direct investment (FDI) in middle-skill manufacturing activities, so as to inform an action-agenda for policies that will help developing and emerging market economies to link into global supply chains while building backward linkages deep into their own economies. The evidence reviewed here shows positive benefits from external advice […]


When do Multinational Companies Consider Corporate Social Responsibility? A Multi-Country Study in Sub-Saharan Africa

10th November 2016
KCG Secretary
Authors: Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Stefan Hoffmann and Adnan Šerić (Business & Society Review, 2017, Vol. 122(2), 191-220)

While African countries are becoming more and more relevant as host countries for suppliers of multinational companies little is known about corporate social responsibility (CSR) in this region. To fill this gap, the present paper explores CSR considerations of foreign affiliates of multinational companies when choosing local African suppliers. The paper suggests a model of three types of determinants, namely firm characteristics, exports[…]


Linkages with Multinationals and Domestic Firm Performance: The Role of Assistance for Local Firms

10th November 2016
KCG Secretary
Authors: Holger Görg and Adnan Šerić (European Journal of Development Research, 2016, Vol. 28(4), 605-624)

This paper uses firm level data for 19 African countries to look at the link between domestic firms’ business relationship with multinationals and their performance in terms of innovation and productivity. Quite uniquely, we also evaluate the importance of support received by the domestic firm, either from the government or the multinational business partner, for this link. Overall, our data analysis shows that for the average domestic firm, supplying to a foreign multinational in the country is positively associated with product innovation. Buying from a multinational is positively associated with labour productivity. These results are independent of any type of support from the government or multinationals […]