Globalisation and (post)colonialism

In this project, I study how economic development is shaped by cross-country knowledge flows via trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and other channels. Using novel micro data for several Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, I measure the quantitative importance of three channels: technical knowledge embodied in imported machinery, technical and organizational knowledge embodied in expatriate managers, and disembodied knowledge transfers taking place within multinational firms. I then analyze what impact foreign knowledge has on the firms and the workers of the host economy, and what are its implications for aggregate productivity and income inequality. The project relies on several existing databases for Hungary and Romania, which will be complemented with newly purchased, collected and compiled data. The outcome of the project will be seven research studies and a collection of firm-level data sets covering CEE countries, including a large cross-country firm survey on the local supplier linkages of multinational companies. My proposed project improves upon the state of the art in four ways. First, as a comprehensive study using novel micro data, it uncovers new facts about the relative importance of the channels of knowledge flows. Second, it improves the identification of causal effects relative to existing studies by exploiting the detailed micro data. Third, it uses the micro estimates to quantify the aggregate impact of foreign knowledge on the economy. Fourth, it discusses how foreign knowledge affects different firms and workers differently, and, more specifically, how it may contribute to income inequality. More broadly, the research findings help evaluate the relative efficacy of trade, FDI, and immigration policies in promoting economic growth and can inform theories about the channels and barriers of productivity convergence.

NOPOOR aims to build new knowledge on the nature and extent of poverty in developing countries to provide policymakers with a broader understanding of poverty. We believe that poverty cannot be tackled without a comprehensive approach. We know that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon, but NOPOOR will explore new and uncharted dimensions. It is not just a picture of poverty, but also an understanding of poverty entry and exit processes that is needed for achieving MDGs and for making more effective the policies. Nineteen experienced partners are involved in the project, which includes ten teams from developing and emerging countries in three regions (Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). These countries have implemented different poverty reduction policies, and this will form the basis for the comparative and case studies approach taken. The project will identify key mechanisms that explain the persistence and exacerbation of poverty, which have been altered by the insertion of developing countries into the globalization process, including trade, aid, FDI and migration, and by the growing interdependence of economies. Causes may differ between countries. This calls for policies and actions to be tailored to each poor country’s characteristics, including their access to resources, political regime, quality of institutions and governance. These points are developed by various approaches, including political economics, and different methods: surveys, econometric studies and case studies. NOPOOR will put significant resources into generating new knowledge from original surveys, database work and qualitative work. .It will also look forward to future scenarios. Conclusions will be oriented to policy recommendations. Beyond this contribution to scientific knowledge, NOPOOR will pursue an active policy of dissemination and capacity building, including training of young Southern researchers and the implementation of a permanent network with National Institutes of Statistics (NIS). The project is policy-oriented. NOPOOR will accompany the EU's agenda for its policy against poverty by consultations, guidance notes, and policy briefs on issues relating to the program. The review of MDG will constitute an important point of focus in the future years.

NOPOOR aims to build new knowledge on the nature and extent of poverty in developing countries to provide policymakers with a broader understanding of poverty. We believe that poverty cannot be tackled without a comprehensive approach. We know that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon, but NOPOOR will explore new and uncharted dimensions. It is not just a picture of poverty, but also an understanding of poverty entry and exit processes that is needed for achieving MDGs and for making more effective the policies. Nineteen experienced partners are involved in the project, which includes ten teams from developing and emerging countries in three regions (Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). These countries have implemented different poverty reduction policies, and this will form the basis for the comparative and case studies approach taken. The project will identify key mechanisms that explain the persistence and exacerbation of poverty, which have been altered by the insertion of developing countries into the globalization process, including trade, aid, FDI and migration, and by the growing interdependence of economies. Causes may differ between countries. This calls for policies and actions to be tailored to each poor country’s characteristics, including their access to resources, political regime, quality of institutions and governance. These points are developed by various approaches, including political economics, and different methods: surveys, econometric studies and case studies. NOPOOR will put significant resources into generating new knowledge from original surveys, database work and qualitative work. .It will also look forward to future scenarios. Conclusions will be oriented to policy recommendations. Beyond this contribution to scientific knowledge, NOPOOR will pursue an active policy of dissemination and capacity building, including training of young Southern researchers and the implementation of a permanent network with National Institutes of Statistics (NIS). The project is policy-oriented. NOPOOR will accompany the EU's agenda for its policy against poverty by consultations, guidance notes, and policy briefs on issues relating to the program. The review of MDG will constitute an important point of focus in the future years.

The phenomenon of EU migrants who go abroad to beg, collect bottles, trade and do other types of informal “street work” (Adriaenssen 2011) has featured on the political agendas of most European countries over the last decade. While the EU framework was intended to encourage the free movement of labour, there is little regulation in place to address the free movement of poverty. As unwanted mobility from EU member states can no longer be stopped at the borders, European states have come to depend on internal policing and regulations in attempts to regulate these practices. Thus far, there has been little research into this particular form of mobility and the related institutional responses. This project addresses this knowledge gap. Drawing on theories of economic sociology and institutional theory, we will explore the causes for and outcomes of this mobility, its organisation and the development and impact of policies and discourses in countries of destination. As this mobility in many ways represents an “extreme” case of transnational migration and ethnic relations, knowledge about the mechanisms involved may challenge or strengthen assumptions within existing theories. The project will therefore engage with wider theoretical debates within the field of migration studies.

La mobilité globale fait aujourd’hui partie de la texture sociale de la mondialisation et des relations internationales. Elle est à la fois une cause et une conséquence de la mondialisation et les réponses des institutions politiques nationales et internationales sont un enjeu clef de l’analyse de la gouvernance et des transformations sociales à l’échelle globale. Elle est un des points de tension de la modernité politique à l’échelle nationale et internationale. En s’intéressant tout à la fois aux organisations internationales, aux politiques migratoires nationales et régionales des Etats, aux modes d’organisation des espaces de vie des migrants et des réfugiés et aux dynamiques sociales transnationales de structuration de la mobilité, on observe le phénomène migratoire sous plusieurs angles et à différentes échelles. Les chercheurs impliqués dans ce projet ont choisi de privilégier une démarche empirique associée à un effort de systématisation qui emprunte à la science politique, à la sociologie, à l’anthropologie et à l’économie politique. Ils ont aussi choisi de lier leurs objets de recherche fondamentale à des enjeux politiques et sociaux immédiatement contemporains et à s’ancrer dans une réflexion scientifique sur l’action publique nationale et internationale, ses normes et ses principes vis-à-vis de la mobilité. Ce projet a pour vocation de donner une description précise de la mobilité et de ses dynamiques politiques et sociales, notamment en s’intéressant à l’observation empirique des pratiques des acteurs de la gouvernance de la mobilité (Etats, organisations internationales, migrants, réfugiés, réseaux). Il a pour objet d’élucider les représentations à l’œuvre dans ces pratiques, les dispositifs normatifs, idéologiques et identitaires qui les structurent. Le premier axe de ce travail concerne les pratiques et les représentations de la gestion de la mobilité en politique internationale. Il a pour enjeu la mise en questionnement de la notion de gouvernance globale de la mobilité, incluant migrations économiques et flux de refugiés. Les organisations internationales, leur interaction avec les acteurs non gouvernementaux de la politique des migrations internationales et des flux de réfugiés sont au cœur d’un dispositif politique qui est à la fois fait de discours et de pratiques. Le deuxième axe de ce projet observe les enjeux politiques de la gouvernance régionale des migrations dans deux espaces différenciés mais fortement marqué par leur contexte régional, l’Europe et le Moyen Orient. Il s’agit de déterminer la place de l’Etat dans la gouvernance de la mobilité à l’échelle régionale notamment dans le cas européen entre la fin du vingtième et le début du vingt-et-unième siècle. La « gouvernance » oscille entre intégration et « retour de l’Etat » dans la gestion des migrations internationales notamment avec la crise économique et financière, et on étudie les manifestations de cette « réaction souverainiste » sur la mobilité des personnes. Le troisième axe de ce projet s’attache à l’étude ethnographique des lieux de vie des réfugiés, les camps en ‘intéressant aux transformations sociales à l’œuvre dans ce espaces sociaux transnationaux institutionnalisés. Il s’intéresse notamment aux modes de gouvernance mise en œuvre par les acteurs humanitaires dans des contextes de conflits ou de crise et à l’autonomie (agency) des populations concernées et analyse celle-ci à travers la structuration et la matérialité des espaces de relégation et/ou confinement des réfugiés à l’échelle globale. Le quatrième axe de ce projet présente un dispositif prospectif qui vise à décrire les dispositifs contemporains les plus visibles de limitation de la mobilité –les murs et explorer des scenarii politiques d’ouverture des frontières et de libéralisation de la mobilité. Il constitue un complément et un prolongement théorique de l’ensemble des connaissances et analyses déployées dans le cadre de ce projet.

This project studies the challenges that policy makers face in a world where globalization is proceeding at high speed and knowledge creation is the key to prosperity. It consists of two main parts: one focuses on optimal growth policies, the other on policy externalities induced by market integration. The first part builds on the premise that fostering innovation requires appropriate regulations on product market competition and on Intellectual Property Rights. The following questions will be addressed. What are the optimal competition and IPR policies when economic growth requires both innovation and technology diffusion? Are competition and IPR policies complements or substitutes? How does the optimal policy mix change with economic development? How do optimal contractual relationships evolve with development? What are the misallocations created by market power when sectors and firms are heterogeneous in technology and in the exposure to foreign competition? Are trade liberalization and competition policy complements or substitutes? The second part studies the consequences of and remedies to the growing mismatch between economic and political borders created by globalization. The following questions will be addressed: Why does the size of governments increase with globalization? Does higher international factor mobility lead to a race to the bottom in taxation? What is the effect of trade openness on pollution and environmental regulations? Can globalization induce governments to adopt more stringent environmental regulations? Does market integration call for a reorganization of the world political structure? Can the tendency to reinforce supra-national entities and the process of political fragmentation within states be complementary reactions to globalization?

The research project has as general objective to provide further insights to the welfare comparation between trade in goods and migration. A complementary objective is to provide an adequate framework for the discussion of migration policies. There are three issues related to migration flows that are important from a practical point of view and are the object of this research project: The effects of migrants on the cost of providing public goods, the effects of migrants on welfare of local labour force, and the effects of migrants on housing markets. The project aims to build general enough models to analyze the welfare consequences of free mobility of persons within countries when there are public goods that can be congested, to design policies to regulate international migration, and to propose realistic policies to compensate deserving losers from migration flows (some of them based on housing markets). More specifically, the project plans to construct a model with local public goods and congestion levels endogenously determined and, for such a model, define and explore the welfare characteristics of the competitive equilibrium for different forms of financing public goods and find conditions for obtaining gains from migration. On the other hand, the project wants to analyze non linear second best redistributive policies that make Pareto gains from migration attainable. Finally, the project aims to introduce explicitly housing markets in a General Equilibrium model and analyze how housing price equilibrium vary when migration is freed, and how tax policies based on housing market prices can act a regulatory migration device and as a compensation device of possible losers with migration.

Swedish retirees are part of a growing stream of Northern Europeans who migrate to Southern Europe to retire in the sun. Exploring the relations between streams of migrants who meet in Spain, and their intermediaries, this project explores issues of mobility and the globalization of care/service, of crucial importance to welfare states and the future of work, elderly care and retirement conditions in Ageing Europe.

In Swedish public discourse, retirees born in the 1940s are considered a growing cohort of relatively wealthy consumers, with more cosmopolitan preferences and habits, and different demands compared to previous generations. Swedish retirees are part of a growing stream of Northern Europeans who migrate to Southern Europe to retire in the sun. Exploring the relations between streams of migrants who meet in Spain, and their intermediaries, this project explores issues of mobility and the globalization of care/service, of crucial importance to welfare states and the future of work, elderly care and retirement conditions in Ageing Europe.