Prof. Aoife Hanley, Ph.D.

Fellow, Kiel Centre for Globalization
Professor of Applied Economics of the Firm, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel
Senior Researcher of Research Group “Innovation and International Competition”, Kiel Institute for the World Economy
Email: aoife.hanley@ifw-kiel.de
Tel.: +49(0)431-8814-339

Research Interests:

  • The way in which international outsourcing affects profits and R&D
  • Firm level productivity
  • International outsourcing
  • Innovation and Exporting: whether exporting promotes R&D

KCG Working Paper No. 35: Urbanized and Savvy – Which African Firms are Making the Most of Mobile Money?

19th September 2024
KCG Secretary
Authors: Charles Ackah, Aoife Hanley, Lars Hecker, and Michael Kodom

Our analysis of over 500 Ghanaian firms sheds light, for the first time, on how certain firms managed to extract value from mobile money. Our regressions point to the usefulness of this form of cashless payments in stabilizing sales during the COVID pandemic[...]

Aoife Hanley delivered in Berlin research results about Africa’s businesswomen and gender performance gap

9th October 2023
KCG Secretary

On September 19, 2023, the Conference “Shaping Africa’s Future: Geopolitics. Business. Sustainability” took place in the AXICA Congress Centre in Berlin. This conference brought together people from policy, business, and academia from African and European countries, including KCG research fellows, to discuss the forces shaping Africa’s economic future. Prof. Aoife Hanley, Ph.D. (KCG, Kiel Institute and Kiel University; in the middle of the picture) delivered research results about Africa’s businesswomen. Her presentation “Africa’s businesswomen – underfunded or underperforming?” shared new […]

Africa’s Female Entrepreneurs – Underfunded or Underperforming?

23rd May 2023
KCG Secretary
Authors: Charles Ackah, Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley and Cecília Hornok (Small Business Economics, 2024, 62:1051–1074)

We explore the export performance of Africa’s underperforming female entrepreneurs, using the Ghanaian ISSER-IGC panel, a comprehensive dataset of manufacturing firms for 2011–2015. Uniquely, the data provides information about the severity of key business constraints, across both male and female entrepreneurs[...]

Lars Hecker Joins KCG as a Research Fellow

4th October 2022
KCG Secretary
On September 15th, Lars Hecker joined the KCG as a Research Fellow. He is also a doctoral researcher in the Research Centre “Innovation and International Competition” at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. He will be involved in projects in the "Kiel Institute Africa Initiative" and will work on studies related to the growth of African companies in terms of their foreign trade performance and use of technology[...]

Stepping up to the Mark? Firms’ Export Activity and Environmental Innovation in 14 European Countries

7th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Aoife Hanley, Finn Ole Semrau (Industry and Innovation, forthcoming)

We investigate the ability of exports to trigger the adoption of environmental innovation (EI) in firms, shedding light on the determinants of convergence in environmental standards for Europe’s catch-up economies. To analyse this question empirically, we measure the latter as the 1) probability a firm adopts EI and the 2) breadth of EI adoption in firms[...]

Aoife Hanley discusses Chances and Challenges of China’s Energy Transition for German SMEs

8th November 2021
KCG Secretary
According to the Paris Agreement negotiated at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21, in 2015 and signed afterwards, the countries involved are expected to give updated national pledges every five years to enhance their nationally determined contributions to help limit the greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. First such official updates are thus expected at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, that is currently held in Glasgow in United Kingdom[...]

New KCG Study Investigates Impact of Exports on Innovation in China

14th June 2021
KCG Secretary
Economists generally agree on a connection between exports and innovation and the former fuels the latter. Several studies also report the existence of such export-driven innovation for Chinese exporters.
In addition to the direct impact of exports on innovation among exporters, there is a further effect, namely an indirect or spillover effect of exports. Non-exporters can theoretically also become more innovative, when information accumulated by exporters in the same region or sector gets spilled over to the non-exporters[...]

KCG Working Paper No. 24: Exports and New Products in China – A Generalized Propensity Score Approach with Firm-to-Firm Spillovers

14th June 2021
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Autthors: Yundan Gong and Aoife Hanley

Underpinning China’s technological advancement are the twin-engines of exports and innovation. To better understand China’s meteoric economic transformation, we explore the extent to which new products are triggered by exports (direct effects) and by exposure to other exporters (indirect effects)[...]

KCG Managing Director Holger Görg is Invited to Join a Hearing on Supply Chain Law Today

28th April 2021
KCG Secretary
Today there will be a hearing on “Supply Chain Law” in the Environment and Agriculture Committee of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein. Prof. Holger Görg, Ph.D. (KCG Managing Director) is invited to provide his views on this topic. In total, 16 experts and representatives of environmental and development organisations as well as industry/business associations are expected to share their opinion on the topic from various aspects at the hearing[...]

KCG Policy Paper No. 7: Ein Lieferkettengesetz für Deutschland?

12th February 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Ludger Heidbrink, Stefan Hoffmann, Till Requate

Ein Lieferkettengesetz kann einen starken Anreiz dafür setzen, dass deutsche Unternehmen sich für nachhaltige Sozial- und Umweltbedingungen in globalen Lieferketten einsetzen. Dabei sollte jedoch überdacht werden, ob es zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt nicht sinnvoller wäre, eine gesetzlich vorgeschriebene Haftung durch eine zunächst zeitlich befristete Selbstverpflichtungsphase zu ersetzen oder zu ergänzen[…]

Coffee Development Report 2020 on the Coffee GVC is now Online Accessible

2nd February 2021
KCG Secretary
#CoffeeDevelopmentReport
The Coffee Development Report 2020 (CDR 2020) “The Value of Coffee: Sustainability, Inclusiveness, and Resilience of the Coffee Global Value Chain (GVC)” was released on Jan. 28, 2021 by the International Coffee Organization (ICO). The CDR 2020 gathers up-to-date research insights into the evolution of the international coffee trade, the key drivers of the development of the coffee GVC, and its economic, social and environmental impacts[...]

KCG Working Paper No. 22: Why are Africa’s Female Entrepreneurs not Playing the Export Game? Evidence from Ghana

7th October 2020
KCG Secretary
Authors: Charles Ackah, Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, and Cecília Hornok

We explore the export performance of Africa’s underperforming female entrepreneurs, using the Ghanaian ISSER-IGC panel, a comprehensive dataset of manufacturing firms for 2011–2015. Uniquely, the data provides information about the severity of key business constraints, across both male and female entrepreneurs[...]

A New KCG Paper on Foreign Trade and Sustainable Business Practices in Ghana is Published Today

5th October 2020
KCG Secretary
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Foreign trade and sustainability is high on the political agenda. German and international policy-makers undertake increasing efforts to use trade policy more effectively for sustainable development purposes. A growing toolbox is meant to facilitate these policy aims, including sustainability chapters in trade agreements, sustainable value chains and sustainability standards. Meanwhile, scientific evidence on how trading activities impact on firms’ sustainable behaviour is limited[...]

A New KCG Project on the Development of Global Value Chains in the Coffee Sector

24th August 2020
KCG Secretary
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International trade is widely recognised as a key driver of economic growth, poverty reduction and societal development. The United Nations (UN) thus considers international trade as an important instrument for individual countries and the world as a whole to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The particular attention that the UN gives to the developing countries in this regard makes it clear that some of these countries still lie strongly behind as to their integration into the international trade and thus are farther away from benefiting from trade for their development[...]

A New KCG Research Project on the Impact of Special Economic Zones on Inequality

11th May 2020
KCG Secretary
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Inward foreign direct investment (FDI) is generally considered to be advantageous for supporting economic development in the emerging economies. Foreign investors do not only bring financial resources, know-how and technologies that are (relatively) limited on site into the FDI destination countries but also help local firms to gain better access to and benefit from the global production networks[...]

KCG Recently Started a Further Research Project on Trade and Sustainable Development in Ghana

19th December 2019
KCG Secretary
With a specific focus on Africa, KCG researchers were involved in several research projects focusing on trade and foreign direct investment as well as their impact in Africa in 2018/2019. The projects were financially supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ GmbH). As to trade, KCG researchers carried out a first project focusing on Ghana from late 2018 to mid-2019, in cooperation with Dr. Charles Ackah (University of Ghana)[...]

KCG Research: Active Engagement of MNEs Matters for Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility in Africa

5th November 2019
KCG Secretary
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Economic research has provided evidence showing that developing countries’ integration into global value chains is highly advantageous for encouraging their economic and social development over time. Events in practice such as Rana Plaza Collapse in 2013 showed, however, that the benefits of globalization may be realized (partially) at the cost of labour welfare and environmental sustainability on site. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) from economically more advanced countries have been often criticized for focusing on maximizing their profits only and thus ignoring their social responsibility while investing in and/or doing business with firms in the developing countries[...]

Offshoring: Causes and Consequences at the Firm and Worker Level

11th September 2018
KCG Secretary
This volume brings together research papers dealing with the causes and consequences of offshoring. The first part considers causes and motives of offshoring. Using firm level data for countries such as Ireland, France, and the UK, this book looks at issues such as the increasing availability of business services or the internet, and improvements in intellectual property rights protection as stimulants of offshoring. The second part then looks at the implications of offshoring for the firms involved. Based on firm level data for Ireland, Sweden, the UK and a number of Emerging Market Economies, the book also focuses on productivity effects of offshoring as well as the implications for innovation activities of firms, and for profitability[…]

KCG Research Seminar by Aoife Hanley on Global Value Chains and the Relevance of Honesty in a Post Block-Chain World

1st March 2018
KCG Secretary
The fourth KCG Research Seminar will take place in the Lecture Hall at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy on March 6, 2018 (Tuesday). Prof. Aoife Hanley, Ph.D., Co-head of the KCG Project “Global Supply Chains, Environmental Regulation and Green Innovation” will give a presentation based on her research paper “Global Value Chains: Should Honesty (not Hypocrisy) Pay in a Post Block-Chain World?”, co-authored with Prof. Holger Görg, Ph.D. (CAU Kiel, IfW and KCG) and Dr. Adnan Seric (KCG and UNIDO)[…]

Leibniz President Matthias Kleiner visited Kiel Centre for Globalization

1st February 2018
KCG Secretary
Prof. Dr. Matthias Kleiner, President of the Leibniz Association, visited Leibniz ScienceCampi in Kiel on Jan. 31, 2018. His visit started with two morning meetings with Prof. Dr. Sonja Peterson, Scientific Director of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and most of the research members of the Kiel Centre for Globalization led by Prof. Holger Görg, Ph.D., KCG Managing Director. Prof. Kleiner was accompanied by Dr. Bettina Böhm (Secretary-General), Dr. Kristina Hahn (Advisor) and Dr. Felix Kießling (Advisor) for visiting KCG […]

KCG Professors Have Contributed to the Report of the German Council of Economic Advisors

16th November 2017
KCG Secretary
Holger Görg and Aoife Hanley wrote a background paper for the latest report by the German Council of Economic Advisors (Sachverständigenrat). The background paper, entitled “Globalization: Implications for Firms in Germany”, looks at data at the firm level to shed light on questions such as: What types of firms are involved in trade or investments? What distinguishes these globalized firms, if anything, from firms that are not engaged in these international activities?[…]

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. […]

New KCG Study on South-South FDI in Africa

26th May 2017
KCG Secretary
Foreign direct investment (FDI) was traditionally dominated by firms from developed countries. These countries were also popular FDI destination countries for a long while. Over the past decade, however, more and more developing economies became increasingly intensively integrated in the FDI engagement worldwide – as sourcing as well as destination countries. Driven by the expectation that determinants and effects of FDI from developing economies to developing countries (South-South FDI) may differ from those of traditional FDI both within developed countries (North-North FDI) and from developed countries to developing countries (North-South FDI), there has been an increasing amount of Studies on South-South FDI over time. One of the main research regions for such a specific form of FDI is East/South-East Asia. In contrast, empirical analyses on South-South FDI in Africa are very limited. This may be partially attributable to the lack of reliable representative datasets for the analysis.[…]

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

26th May 2017
KCG Secretary
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
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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 .[…]

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[…]


KCG Working Paper No. 1: When Do Multinational Companies Consider Corporate Social Responsibility?

1st November 2016
KCG Secretary
Authors:
Holger Görg, Aoife Hanley, Stefan Hoffmann and Adnan Seric

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.[…]