Current and Recent Projects

Financialisation, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development (FESSUD)

 

CIBAM works closely with three partners in the UK, Poland and Greece, on a European Commission-funded project, entitled Financialisation, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development (FESSUD). This is a five-year project that started in 2011 and is largely funded by a near €10m grant from the EC’s 7th Framework Programme. The project brings together economists and other social scientists to look at how financialisation - the increasing dominance of the financial system over other parts of the economy - has affected the performances of national economies and the global economy in the last 30 years. FESSUD is co-ordinated by the Leeds University Business School and is led by Professor Malcolm Sawyer. It involves 13 other leading universities from across Europe and South Africa, and one non-government organisation.

 

The project seeks to address the following issues:

 

•     the impact of financialisation on the achievement of specific economic, social, and environmental objectives;

•     the relationship between financialisation and the sustainability of the financial system, economic development and the environment;

•     the lessons to be drawn from the crisis about the nature and impact of financialisation;

•     the requisites for a financial system able to support a process of sustainable development, broadly conceived.

 

CIBAM’s contribution zeroes in on the issue of supra-national governance for sustainable competitiveness and in specialized business-related themes, such as private equity and venture capital, sovereign wealth funds, investment banking and hedge funds. For this, CIBAM leverages its wide international connections with business to obtain first-hand insight through in-depth interviews.

 

Dynamic Regions in a Knowledge-Driven Global Economy (DYNREG)

 

As part of European Commission's 'Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-based Society' programme, the European Commission funded a project on "Dynamic regions in a knowledge-driven global economy: lessons and policy implications for the EU" (DYNREG). CIBAM was part of a consortium of nine leading research and higher education institutions, comprising:

 

•     Center for European Integration Studies, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet Bonn,   Germany
•     Centre for International Business and Management, UK
•     Economic and Social Research Institute, Ireland
•     Economisch en Sociaal Institute (Economic and Social Institute), the Netherlands
•     Faculty of Economics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
•     London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
•     University of Thessaly, Greece
•     Univeristà Commerciale "Luigi Bocconi", Italy
•     Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria
•     Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

 

The project analysed the growth performance of emerging dynamic regions (China, India, SE Asia, Brazil, Russia, Central Europe), examined their shifting comparative advantages and roles in a knowledge-driven world economy and drew lessons and policy implications for the EU. The DYNREG consortium began work on the project on 1 January 2006 and finished in January 2009. An edited book with the main findings of the project was published by Springer in December 2010. The book, entitled Innovation, Growth and Competitiveness: Dynamic Regions in the Knowledge-Based World Economy, is edited by Peter Nijkamp and Iulia Siedschlag (ISBN-10: 9783642149641).

 

Environmental Regulation and Sustainable Competitiveness

 

CIBAM is a partner in an international consortium of academics from the US (MIT), Sweden (Stockholm School of Economics; Chalmers University), Switzerland (ETH) and Japan (University of Tokyo), on a large and ambitious project focusing on "Environmental regulation as a firm competitive advantage". The consortium has received funding from the Alliance for Global Sustainability to investigate whether and how improved environmental performance is being or can be used by firms as an effective instrument for gaining competitive advantage. CIBAM is represented by Director Professor Christos Pitelis, faculty members Dr David Reiner and Dr Chris Hope, and Academic Associates Professor Niclas Adler, Professor Thomas Bernauer, Dr Jim Foster and Professor Kenneth Oye.