On the 10th of March 2016, the EU Centre for Global Affairs welcomed University of Tubingen Economics Professor Frank Staehler, to present the first lecture in the Globalisation Public Lecture Series: “Attracting Foreign Direct Investment: Curse or Blessing?”

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been the main driving force of globalisation for a long time. FDI is undertaken by multinational firms, and the aggregate sales of their foreign affiliates is larger than aggregate world exports.

Additionally, a large part of world trade takes even place within multinational firm boundaries. However, multinational firms are large, they have market power, and they may avoid taxes easier. Furthermore, compared to local firms, they may use investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, so their role is not uncontroversial.

This lecture dealt with some of these recent trends and policy issues of attracting foreign direct investment.

Professor Frank Staehler:
Frank Stähler is a Professor of Economics at the University of Tübingen, Germany, where he has been since 2011. He is also a professional research fellow and an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide, and he has also held faculty positions at the Universities of Kiel and Würzburg in Germany and Otago in New Zealand. He is currently on sabbatical visiting the University of Adelaide and has been visiting the Australian National University as a Fred Gruen Chair holder in the Research School of Economics in 2015.
While his research has focused primarily on international trade and foreign direct investment, he has also worked in public economics and industrial organisation. He has published widely in journals such as the European Economic Review, the Journal of International Economics, the International Journal of Industrial Organization, the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, the International Economic Review and many others. Professor Stähler is a member of the CESifo research network.