Prof. Sourafel Girma Ph.D.

KCG External Research Fellow
Professor of Industrial Economics
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Nottingham
Email: Sourafel.Girma@nottingham.ac.uk

Research Interests:

  • Microeconometric Policy Evaluation
  • Impact of Globalisation
  • Chinese Firms’ Performance Analysis

State Aid can Produce Unintended Losers

23rd February 2023
KCG Secretary
Earlier this month, the European Commission proposed to transform the State Aid Temporary Crisis Framework to facilitate the green transition in Europe. One main policy focus of the proposed Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework is to relax the strict state aid rules in the EU, in order to facilitate “the roll-out of renewable energies and to support the decarbonisation of the industry”[...]

Who wins and who loses from state subsidies?

6th September 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Jun Du, Sourafel Girma, Holger Görg, Ignat Stepanok (Canadian Journal of Economics, 2023, 56(3): 1007-1031)

China is perceived to rely on subsidizing firms in targeted industries to improve their performance and stay competitive. We implement an approach that allows for the joint estimation of direct and indirect effects of subsidies on subsidized and non-subsidized firms. We find that firms that receive subsidies experience a boost for productivity[...]

Productivity Effects of Processing and Ordinary Export Market Entry: A Time-varying Treatments Approach

14th April 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Sourafel Girma, Holger Görg (Review of International Economics, forthcoming)
China’s policy of encouraging export processing has been the topic of much discussion in the academic literature and policy debate. We use a recently developed econometric approach that allows for time varying “treatments” and estimate economically and statistically significant positive causal effects of entering into export processing and ordinary export markets on subsequent firm level productivity[..]

New KCG Study on Productivity Effects of Processing and Ordinary Export Market Entry

30th March 2021
KCG Secretary
The ubiquitous “Made in China” label epitomizes China’s transformation from a virtual autarky in the 1970s to a veritable exporting powerhouse in little more than a generation. This transformation arguably owes much to the country’s ever-increasing integration in global value chains. This has undoubtedly been helped by policy. As early as the mid-1980s China introduced special “processing trade” schemes in an attempt to boost exports. The hallmark of this scheme is that there are tariff-exemptions on imported inputs as long as these are only processed in the country and then re-exported. Domestic sales of these processed goods are, in general, not permitted[...]

KCG Working Paper No. 23: Productivity effects of processing and ordinary export market entry: A time-varying treatments approach

30th March 2021
KCG Secretary
Authors: Sourafel Girma and Holger Görg

China’s policy of encouraging export processing has been the topic of much discussion in the academic literature and policy debate. We use a recently developed econometric approach that allows for time varying “treatments” and estimate economically and statistically significant positive causal effects of entering into export processing and ordinary export markets on subsequent firm level productivity[...]

Which Boats are lifted by a Foreign Tide? Direct and Indirect Wage Effects of Foreign Ownership

4th June 2019
KCG Secretary
Authors: Sourafel Girma, Holger Görg and Erasmus Kersting (Journal of International Business Studies, 2019, Vol. 50(6), 923-947)

The attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) is considered to be of particular importance for emerging economies because it represents a channel through which international convergence in standards of living may be achieved. One important effect of FDI is its impact on wages, both within the targeted firm (direct) and the local firms within the same geographic region and sector (indirect). In this paper we investigate the question whether multinational enterprises[…]

KCG Researchers Contributed to a New UNIDO Report on Global Value Chains with Focus on Asia

16th August 2018
KCG Secretary
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) recently published a new report “Global Value Chains (GVCs) and Industrial Development – Lessons from China, South-East and South Asia” to provide evidence on the evolution of global and regional value chains in Asia. From the Asian lessons policy suggestions are derived to support firms’ and countries’ participation in GVCs and encourage their upgrading over time[…]

External Research Fellows Join the KCG

27th July 2017
KCG Secretary
KCG Logo

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, […]