The Center for Firms in the Global Economy (CeFiG) is a research center that aims at analyzing firm behavior in a globalized economy, with a special attention to companies in Europe as well as developing countries . The center primarily produces academic research papers but would take part in international business or public policy oriented projects.
CeFiG focuses its research effort on issues such as internationalization and trading activity of firms, employment, location choice and geography, the organization of firms. It has a particular interest both in the activities of multinationals firms as well as entrepreneurship and start-ups.
In terms of research focus, the center puts an emphasis on using micro-level data such as firm establishment level datasets, customs data on trading activities, or employment data. Micro-level data allows studying the foundations of and the very working of globalization, such as investment decisions and cross-border activities of firms or domestic employment consequences of outsourcing and offshoring. Innovation, as a core competence of leaders in a global economy, will also be studied.
CeFiG’s prime responsibility is to carry out state-of-the-art research and publish a working paper series. However, the center intends to establish a policy oriented short papers series offering non-technical summary of research efforts. Being empirical investigation oriented, it is set to manage and publish micro-level and mezzo level (i.e. aggregated) datasets. The center is also open to consulting tasks on topics related to its core competences.
CeFiG is established by five researchers affiliated to the Central European University, the University of California at Berkley and the Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The center is open to new members. The center will be assisted by several outside advisors from top institutions.
First projects include investigations on the nature of trade flows, internationalization of firms, product mix of trading firms, spillover of productivity, the impact of euro introduction on firm behaviour or the activities of top multinationals.