KCG Researchers Gave Presentations at the Annual Conference of the European Trade Study Group

© ©Frauke Steglich

KCG’s thematic focus has been to work on an interdisciplinary research agenda that evaluates the proliferation of global value chains (GVCs) as an important aspect of globalization. As a matter of course, trade and related research issues belong to KCG’s priority research topics. To share the research insights obtained and exchange knowledge with other trade experts, KCG researchers actively attended international trade workshops and conferences, incl. the Annual Conference of the European Trade Study Group (ETSG) – one of the large-scale trade conferences worldwide. The ETSG Conference provides a forum for discussion and research on international trade and attracts economists and experts interested in trade related issues from universities and research institutes over the world.

The ETSG Conference 2019 was hosted by the University of Bern, World Trade Institute, on September 12-14, 2019 in Bern, Switzerland. At the Conference KCG was represented by its seven research fellows. They gave presentations based on their recent papers and/or co-authored papers presented by partners on site. The papers investigate various aspects of globalization. International trade was the clear core topic of the presentations with KCG researchers’ involvement.

Seven of the nine presented papers focused on investigating trade-related issues. Prof. Holger Görg, Ph.D. (KCG Managing Director) gave a presentation based on a recent paper investigating the impact of China’s export processing policies, in cooperation with Prof. Sourafel Girma, Ph.D. (Nottingham University & KCG External Research Fellow). Haiou Mao, Ph.D. (Wuhan University & KCG Guest Researcher) and Dr. Léa Marchal (KCG Fellow) also paid particular attention to trade with China’s involvement with the former presenting a paper analysing trade potential between China and the EU and the latter co-authoring a presented paper investigating the impact of Chinese import competition on firms’ survival probability and growth rate, taking into account the role of immigrant workers.

Another three trade-related papers presented were about trade margin and trade impact. Dr. Julian Hinz (KCG Fellow) was involved in a paper estimating the extensive margin of trade that was presented on site by his co-authors. Frauke Steglich (KCG Fellow) shared with the conference participants the findings of a joint paper co-authored by KCG colleagues as to how trade can affect firm-level volatility for the case of India. Steglich also co-authored another paper presented by Finn Ole Semrau (KCG Fellow) at the conference that investigates the role of downstreamness in global value chains and stakeholders’ demand for firms’ engagement in corporate social responsibility activities. Moving to economic/trade sanctions, Hinz presented another joint paper on how economic sanctions imposed on Russia may affect election results.

The remaining two papers with KCG involvement that were also presented at the ETSG Conference 2019 focused on analysing the impact of aid on international movement of human and financial resources, respectively. Marchal presented her work (with co-authors) on the impact of aid on migration flows. As to the movement of financial resources, Dr. Birgit Meyer (Vienna University of Economics and Business & KCG External Research Fellow) presented the findings of a recent paper on the impact of aid on accessing foreign direct investments.

The conference program with more information about the presented papers is available here.