up of companies in a sample of Asian countries and a sam-
ple of Sub-Sahara African companies. Moreover, it also
looked at opportunities provided by inward FDI in those
countries; alternatively, an analysis was carried out on
the negative effects of competition from China on export
price strategies of less developed countries. Additionally,
the research line heavily engages in analysis linked to ex-
tractive industry value chains, especially in the DRC, both
in general, as well as more specifically related to artisanal
gold and other mining activities. This research programme
is shared with the SES research line, along with a partner-
ship with the Université Catholique de Bukavu (UCB) and
its associated ‘Expertise Center for Mining Governance’
(CEGEMI) project (see below for more details).
A traditional and continued research focus in this area
deals with the impact of government policy interventions
– those linked to trade liberalisation and regional inte-
gration initiatives – on poverty, with research focusing on
Argentina and Ethiopia. The research line also continued
efforts linked explicitly to measuring the impact of the
global financial crisis and analysing strategies to improve
the resilience of low-income countries to such external
shocks. In terms of impact measurement, one particu-
lar analysis looked at the impact of the crisis on labour
market transitions in South Africa, using two waves of
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS IMP
# # Cassimon, D., Engelen, P.-J. and Van Liedekerke,
L. (2016) “When do firms invest in corporate social
responsibility? A real option framework”, Journal of
Business Ethics, 137 (1): 15-29.
# # Giovannetti, G. and Sanfilippo, M. (2016) “China’s
competition and the export price strategies of
developed countries”, International Review of Applied
Economics, 30 (2): 238-254.
# # Moncarz, P., Barone, S., Calfat, G. and Descalzi,
R. (2016) “Poverty impacts of changes in the
international prices of agricultural commodities:
recent evidence for Argentina (an ex-ante analysis)”,
Journal of Development Studies: online first.
# # Sanfilippo, M. and Seric, A. (2016) “Spillovers
from agglomerations and inward FDI: a multilevel
analysis on Sub-Saharan African firms”,
Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv = Review of World Economics,
152 (1): 147-176.
# # Vancluysen, S., Calfat, G. and Pesántez, B. (2016)
“Return for development or ‘business’ as usual? The
Ecuadorian experience”, Migration and Development:
online first.
IOB seminar ‘Grand Corruption in Burundi:
a collective action problem which poses major challenges
for governance reforms’ by Gervais Rufyikiri
longitudinal datasets. On crisis resilience strategies, sev-
eral staff members looked at new opportunities provided
to low-income African countries by their renewed access
to global financial markets, such as through tapping
Eurobond markets, or through the development and inter-
nationalisation of local currency bond markets. Analysis
also focused on devising appropriate insurance policies,
whether domestic, in the form of adequate foreign reserve
policies, or international, through devising more appropri-
ate global emergency financing instruments. This research
is also linked to two ongoing PhD projects. For these
topics, our research staff collaborate with researchers
from national (such as the National Bank) and interna-
tional organisations (such as the OECD and UNIDO), as
well as providing policy support research to Belgian official
development cooperation agents in the framework of the
ACROPOLIS ‘Finance for Development’ (BeFinD) project,
which overlaps with the CFD research line.
The traditional research focus on transnational migration
and remittances has also continued. This mainly involved
conducting and analysing original large-scale population
censuses in Ecuador and the Philippines through interna-
tional networks, using an extended version of the commu-
nity-based monitoring system (CBMS). This research is
linked to PhD work and is embedded in the interuniversity
cooperation project with Ecuador, financed by VLIR-UOS.
Finally, one novel way to assess public policy interventions
to cure global market failures entails the application of a
‘real option’ analysis, allowing more explicit treatment of
potentially important characteristics, such as uncertain-
ty, flexibility and – through the use of ‘compound’ real
options – the staged nature of interventions. More con-
ceptual analysi s of this issue, linked to a PhD project, was
complemented with applied analysis of public interven-
tions in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR),
social standards and the use of social audit initiatives.
Annual Report 2016 • 9