LSE’s Dr Riccardo Crescenzi| has been awarded one of the prestigious and highly competitive European Research Council Starting Grants 2014. This is a major personal research grant (approximately 1.3 million euros) covering 5 years of cutting-edge research on "Multinationals, Institutions and Innovation in Europe" (Project Title: MASSIVE).
For more information on ERC grants visit:
http://erc.europa.eu/funding-and-grants/funding-schemes/starting-grants|
About the MASSIVE Project:
Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) generated value added for approximately US$16 trillion accounting for more than a quarter of world GDP (UNCTAD, 2012). The progressive expansion of firms from emerging economies into multinational enterprises is unprecedented. Outflows of FDIs from developing economies reached the record level of $426 billion in 2012, corresponding to 31% of global outflows, up from 16% in 2007 (UNCTAD, 2013).
However, very little is known on both the factors able to shape the long-term location decisions of MNEs and, more generally, on the ultimate impact of MNEs on their host economies. This reflects three fundamental gaps in our existing knowledge of MNEs. First the omission of some fundamental determinants of MNEs investment decisions in ‘traditional’ national-level analyses. Territorial/spatial factors, MNEs heterogeneity and local institutional conditions have been often overlooked in MNEs location analyses. Second the limited attention to the broader set of impacts of MNEs in their host economies and the role of institutional factors as selective ‘filters’ for these impacts. Third the intimate inter-connection between location motives and impacts has remained unexplored.
This research project will investigate the location strategies of MNEs and their territorial impacts addressing these three fundamental knowledge gaps, shedding new light on the factors shaping the economic geography of MNEs and their impacts and providing policy-makers at all levels with new tools to promote innovation, employment and economic recovery after the current economic crisis.
Dr Riccardo Crescenzi is an Associate Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics and a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is also Research Affiliate with the Spatial Economics Research Centre at the LSE. Riccardo has provided advice to, amongst others, the European Investment Bank, the European Parliament and the European Commission (DG Regional Policy). His research is focused on regional economic development and growth, innovation, regional policy, comparative territorial analysis of Developed and Emerging Countries and on the location decisions of Multinational Firms and their local impacts.