News

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

14th June 2018
KCG Secretary
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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[…]

KCG Seminar on Institutional Framework for Corporate Social Responsibility: Observations on Japan and Taiwan on June 15, 2018

8th June 2018
KCG Secretary
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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been a focus point within the realm of global corporate governance for decades. Firms’ engagement in CSR is, however, not driven by their altruistic motives only. Institutional framework and regulations, often considered as rules for economic exchanges, are expected to also have impact on how firms would be motived in engaging in CSR and how they would implement CSR into business operations. Against this background, Bobby, Piao-Hao Hsu, Researcher from the Tamkang University and Visiting […]

KCG Fellows Attended the Global Solutions Summit in Berlin

1st June 2018
KCG Secretary
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This year’s Global Solution Summit took place on May 28 and 29, 2018 in Berlin. The annual summit is organized by the global think tank network “Global Solutions Initiative” that is chaired by Prof. Dennis J. Snower Ph.D., President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. The summit brought together international leaders from academia, business, politics and the civil society with the aim of discussing[…]

UNIDO-KCG Conference 2018 to be Held in Vienna on June 18

24th May 2018
KCG Secretary
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The UNIDO-KCG Forum on Globalization and Industrialization 2018 will take place on June 18 at the Vienna International Centre. Following its thematic tradition from the past UNIDO-KCG Conferences, the 2018 Conference will continue to focus its discussions on some key selected aspects of global value chains with “Global Value Chains as Drivers for Structural Change” as its overarching theme this year[…]

KCG Seminar by Juelin Yin on Business Ethics in China

17th May 2018
KCG Secretary
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Since its open-door policy in the late 1970s, China has been more and more strongly integrated into the world economy. For the fact that China is nowadays an important player in the world economy and in global supply chains, academics and different stakeholders in the world are more and more interested in gaining insights into how firms do business in China. How business ethics are realized in practice, is one of the focused topics here[…]

Guli-Sanam Karimova Joined Workshop “5 Years after Rana Plaza: Consequences for Labour Standards Improvements in Garment Supply Chains”

9th May 2018
KCG Secretary
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The Rana Plaza – five stock garment factory building – collapsed on April 24, 2013 in Bangladesh killing more than 1100 workers. The factory manufactured apparel supplying firms with global brands such as Benetton, Mango, Primark, Walmart etc.
As a reaction to the disaster, more than 200 firms joined two initiatives – “Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh” and “Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety”. The Accord is an independent, legally binding agreement between firms and trade unions. It aims at helping build a safe and healthy working environment in Bangladeshi in general and for the ready-made garment industry in particular. Working in such environment with appropriate health and safety measures, workers would not need to worry a lot about potential severe working accidents[…]

Home-country Employment Protection Matters for Firms’ Relocation Propensity

3rd May 2018
KCG Secretary
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Since the 1990s a great number of policy measures have been observed to promote inflows of foreign direction investment (FDI), with the expectation that foreign investors would not only bring in financial resources but also know-how and technologies to support and facilitate the economic and societal development of the host countries. Some of these policy measures aimed at improving host countries’ business and investment environment to enhance their attractiveness for foreign firms. Labour market regulation was one of the key aspects considered here. Many previous studies showed that less strict labour market regulations, or say a higher level of labour market flexibility, may attract more foreign investors to move in and invest. What was rather hardly studied in the past, was the relevance of home-country labour market regulations on firms’ propensity to relocate (parts) of their operations abroad[…]

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

12th April 2018
KCG Secretary
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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[…]