Prof. Horst Raff, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator, Kiel Centre for Globalization
Chair of Microeconomics, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel
Email: raff@econ-theory.uni-kiel.de
Tel.: +49(0)431-880-1582

Expertise:

  • Impact of Globalization
  • Trade Policy
  • Multinational Enterprises
  • Competition Policy

 


How Importers Hedge Demand Uncertainty Through Dual Sourcing and Safety Inventory

29th January 2025
KCG Secretary
Authors: Chris Muris, Horst Raff, Nicolas Schmitt and Frank Stähler (Canadian Journal of Economics, forthcoming)

We develop a dynamic model of inventory and trade to study how an importer may hedge demand uncertainty when importing involves an order lead time. We show that when the import cost is low, the importer optimally holds safety inventory, i.e., inventory of imported goods in excess of expected sales to deal with demand surges[...]

KCG Researchers Gave Presentations at the Aarhus-Kiel Workshop 2019

27th December 2019
KCG Secretary
The Aarhus-Kiel Workshop is an annual research workshop, jointly organized by the Research Centre for Firms and Industry Dynamics at the Aarhus University and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in cooperation with KCG. It serves as an excellent platform for scholars from Aarhus and Kiel who are specialised in globalization research to present and discuss research (in progress) with other experts in the field[...]

International Trade and Retail Market Performance and Structure: Theory and Empirical Evidence

30th August 2018
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Authors: Philipp Meinen and Horst Raff (Journal of International Economics,2018, Vol. 115, 99-114)

Based on a theoretical model featuring heterogeneous retailers that may source globally and operate as chains, we derive a number of hypotheses that link trade integration to retail firm performance and to the structure of retail markets. We empirically test these predictions using Danish microdata for the period 1999 to 2008. We find that importing retailers are larger, more profitable, and have a higher propensity to have multiple shops than domestically sourcing[…]

Incentives through Inventory Control in Supply Chains

19th June 2018
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Authors: Zhan Qu, Horst Raff and Nicolas Schmitt (International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2018, Vol. 59, 486-513)

The paper shows that taking inventory control out of the hands of competitive or exclusive retailers and assigning it to a manufacturer increases the value of a supply chain especially
for goods whose demand is highly volatile. This is because doing so solves incentive distortions[…]

A New KCG Working Paper on International Trade and Retail Market Performance and Structure

14th June 2018
KCG Secretary
In recent decades, advanced economies have experienced a sharp increase in consumer goods imports, leading to an unprecedented degree of import penetration across many consumer goods industries. A new KCG Working Paper, co-authored by Philipp Meinen, Ph.D. (Deutsche Bundesbank and Aarhus University) and Prof. Horst Raff, Ph.D. (KCG and Kiel University), aims to determine whether this growth in consumer goods imports has contributed to observed changes in the performance of retailers and the structure of retail markets[…]

A New KCG Paper on the Effect of Financial Frictions on Foreign Direct Investment

12th April 2018
KCG Secretary
Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been widely recognised among economists as one of the key factors behind significant inflows of capital, technologies and know-how in emerging and developing countries that helped deal with low growth and poverty challenges in these countries in the past. FDI has played an essential role in intensifying globalization as well by having integrated a great number of countries into the expanding global supply chains and the world economy over time[…]

Financial Frictions and Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Japanese Microdata

5th April 2018
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Authors: Horst Raff, Michael Ryan and Frank Stähler (Journal of International Economics, 2018, Vol. 112, 109-122)

Using Japanese microdata for the period 1980 to 2000 we find evidence for two transmission channels from financial shocks to foreign direct investment: a collateral channel, whereby changes in the value of investors’ landholdings affect their borrowing ability; and a lending channel[…]

KCG Working Paper No. 10: Financial Frictions and Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Japanese Microdata

16th March 2018
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Authors: Horst Raff, Michael Ryan and Frank Stähler

Using Japanese microdata for the period 1980 to 2000 we find evidence for two transmission channels from financial shocks to foreign direct investment: a collateral channel, whereby changes in the value of investors’ landholdings affect their borrowing ability; and a lending channel, whereby changes in bank health affect banks’ lending ability. Decreasing land values[…]

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 […]

Two New Working Papers of KCG Professor Horst Raff Are Now Online

1st December 2017
KCG Secretary
Professor Horst Raff and his co-authors have recently finished two working papers. Both papers examine, with the help of microeconomic models, some important aspects of inventory management within supply chains.

The first paper “Centralized versus Decentralized Inventory Control in Supply Chains and the Bullwhip Effect”, co-authored with Zhan Qu from the Technical University Dresden, looks at how demand volatility is passed upstream through the value chain. In particular, they look at under which circumstances this volatility is enhanced so that the variance of upstream production[…]

FDI, Involvement in Global Supply Chains and Host Country Development

5th January 2017
KCG Secretary
Over the past decade there were a rising number of firm-level empirical studies investigating direct and indirect effects of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on domestic firms and, more generally, economic development in different host countries. The strong increase in the number of related firm-level studies can be particularly attributable to the substantial progress made in the “New” new trade theory since the beginning of the 21st century on the one hand and to the availability of large-scale firm-level datasets and the development in advanced analytical tools required over the past years on the other hand[…]