 |
 |
International Economics and Economic Policy
Research Area and Mission
International Economics studies the interaction of economic agents across geo-political borders. The growing integration of goods and factor markets has made the analysis of the behavior of consumers, firms and governments in a global environment of paramount importance for our every day life.
The goal of our research group is to contribute to broaden knowledge in this area, looking both at normative and positive questions. Special emphasis in particular is given to the study of the setting of economic policies in a global environment.
Starting date of the programme
The current programme has been established in 2011, and involves researchers that were previously engaged in the Finance & Accounting and International Markets program and in the Labor, Region and Environment Program. The goal behind the creation of this new program is to offer a more focused platform for the growing research group working in international economics and economic policy at the Erasmus School of Economics.
Phase of development
The establishment of a separate programme has been made possible by the arrival of several new faculty members in the area. For example, Giovanni Facchini and Laura Hering have joined the faculty over the last two years, and Maarten Bosker will be joining as of October 2011. At the moment the research groups is still comparatively small, but hopefully financial means will be made available for it to grow further. The program builds on the excellent tradition of the ESE in international economics, and has already achieved very high levels in a number of key research areas.
Leadership
Researchers are motivated to conduct research that is suitable for publication in top international journals. The TI list of journals indicate which journals are regarded as top journals. Younger researchers are encouraged to collaborate with more senior colleagues both within and outside the programme. Stimulating younger researchers is one of the primary responsibilities of Full Professors participating in the research programme. Promotions depend strongly upon research output. The TI facilitates the organisation of seminars, workshops and conferences.
Strategy and Policy
The TI research school plays an essential role in the execution of research policy at the ESE. In general, the ESE monitors the individual performance of researchers by conducting performance appraisal interviews. During these interviews, individual members are evaluated on items such as research output and grant applications.
Description of Research Areas
Research activities of this programme focus on two related themes, namely international trade and factor mobility, and economic policy. Our work can be further divided into four sub-themes:
International Trade
Several team members are working in this area. In particular, much work is carried out on the effects of trade in the presence of heterogeneous firms. Both the firm selection process and the welfare effects of trade are analyzed when firms differ in their input mix decision. A second stream of research in this area focuses on the process of trade policy formation, with a particular emphasis on the United States. Recent papers include one of the first analyses of Fast Track authority and its impact for trade negotiations, and the study of the effects of politician’s time horizon on support for trade liberalization.
International migration
With regard to this sub-theme, we have been working both on the effects of immigration on destination countries, as well as on the drivers of individual preferences towards immigration, and the process whereby those preferences are aggregated into migration policy outcomes. Ongoing work is focusing on the enforcement of immigration policies, and the lack thereof, which often results in large number of immigrants entering destination countries illegally.
Development Economics
Several of our team members are working on the recent developments in the Chinese economy and on the impact that growth in China has had on the rest of the world. A second important set of questions which has been tackled involves the role of foreign aid for developing countries, and in particular a comparison of NGO vs. governmental aid.
Economic Policy
Besides work looking at the interaction between globalization and domestic policy making, our group is also involved in research focusing on the economics of optimal taxation and on the impact of public policies on education.
We approach these four sub-themes using a wide variety of state-of-the-art techniques that include:
- Modern econometric techniques (applied to existing datasets or to carefully assembled new ones)
- Macro- and microeconomic theory, including game theory and computable general equilibrium analyses
Relationship with teaching
All members of this programme contribute to the teaching activities of the ESE. These include both undergraduate and graduate-level teaching in the MSc. Programme in International Economics.
Processes in research
Members of the research programme are involved in the organization of the Research on Monday seminar series, which brings high profile international scholars to the Erasmus School of Economcis on a weekly basis. Furthermore, one field seminar is organised by members of the research programme, which usually takes place once a month and it is financed by the Tinbergen Institute.
In addition, a “Brown Bag Seminar” series has been organised to allow faculty members of the Department of Economics to present fresh ideas in an informal setting.
Research cooperation
Research collaboration are carried out for a variety of projects. Based on individual contacts ongoing research exchanges exist with, among others, Australian National University, Asian Institute of Technology, Bocconi University, Brandeis University, ECARES-Universite’ Libre de Bruxelles, University of Essex, Georgetown University, HWWI Hamburg, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, International Monetary Fund, Kansas State University, KU Leuven, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, University of Milan, University of the Philippines, Royal Holloway-University of London.
Conference organization
Conference organisation is one of our policy tools designed to increase visibility. Members of our team have been actively involved in the organization of several conferences in the recent past:
- Final Conference of the FP VI Research Network on the Transnationality of Migrants in Venice, Italy (September 2009)
- First Conference of the FP VII Research Network on Temporary Migration, Integration and the role of policies (Dublin, October 2010)
- Conference on “The Economics and Politics of Immigration” (Turin October 2011)
In 2013 the ESE will be hosting the European Workshop in International Trade, in close collaboration with CEPR. This is the leading conference in international trade in Europe, regularly attended by top scholars from both sides of the Atlantic.
Internal Evaluation and Analysis
As discussed earlier, research policy at the ESE is conducted, to a large extent, through the research school at the Tinbergen Institute. An international peer review committee regularly evaluates our activities. For a self-assessment of the quality of the research programme, please see the discussion under the heading “Analysis, Perspectives and Expectations for the Research Programme”.
Analysis, Perspectives and Expectations for the Research Programme
The programme has achieved high visibility in a number of research areas and is currently considered one of the successful groups in International Economics and Economic Policy analysis in the Netherlands and Europe. We seek to improve our standing further, and aim to become one of the most visible groups in Europe.
The quality of our work is witnessed by a large number of publication in top journals (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, European Economic Review, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, The World Bank Economic Review) and second-tier journals (Economica, Economic Theory, Economic Policy, Journal of Population Economics, The World Economy, etc.). Judging by this list and by recent developments we are confident that the programme will become even more active in the months and years to come.
