Research interests

We conduct methodologically disciplined research with high policy and societal relevance based on clear theoretical foundations on the three major aspects of globalization: international trade, investment and migration. Members of the research team work in particular on the following aspects: (1) globalisation, wage inequality and firm productivity, (2) causes and consequences of international migration, (3) measurement issues, a.o. measurement of efficiency and productivity, the construction of composite indices, inference with estimated variables, (4) location of firms and spillover effects of multinational firms, and (5) international trade, location and migration from an historical perspective.

Key publications

• H2020 research project Governance dimension of international protection, research project PROTECT, coordinated by the university of Bergen. "The right to international protection: a pendulum between globalization and nativization?"
• Frank Caestecker & Peter Scholliers (ed.) (2019) Edited volume on migration and the labor market of the Belgian mining industry during the 20th century, De arbeidsmarkt in de Belgische mijnen gedurende de 20ste eeuw. Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 2019, 4.
• Bertoli, S. and I. Ruyssen (2018) Networks and Migrants' Intended Destination, Journal of Economic Geography, 18(4), pp. 705-728
• Ruyssen, I., & Salomone, S. (2018) Female migration: a way out of discrimination? Journal of Development Economics, 130, 224-241.
• Gilad Ben-Nun & Frank Caestecker (2017) Modern Refugees as Challengers of Nation-State Sovereignty: From the Historical to the Contemporary, Leipzig: Leipzig Universitätsverlag. 125p. 
• Rayp, G., Ruyssen, I., & Standaert, S. (2017) Measuring and explaining cross-country immigration policies, World Development, 95, 141-163.
• Lenaerts, K., & Merlevede, B. (2017) Indirect productivity effects from foreign direct investment and multinational firm heterogeneity, Review of World Economics, 1-24.
• De Bock, J. (2017) Of employers, uncles and interpreters: The diverse trajectories of guest workers to the Belgian city of Ghent, 1960–1975, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-17.
• Standaert, S., Ronsse, S., & Vandermarliere, B. (2016). Historical trade integration: globalization and the distance puzzle in the long twentieth century, Cliometrica, 10(2), 225-250.
• Dumont, M., Rayp, G., Verschelde, M., & Merlevede, B. (2016). The contribution of start-ups and young firms to industry-level efficiency growth, Applied Economics, 48(59), 5786-5801.

Workshops

• On 21 March 2019, ITIM hosted the second CESSMIR research day “Migration research in practice" during which CESSMIR scholars presented their recent research to a broad audience. In 2019, the event was one of the key activities of the city’s Belmundo festival dealing with the topic “Root Causes of Migration”.
  
• On 28 March 2019, we organized a workshop on “Firm Heterogeneity in Technological Change” which aimed to bring together researchers studying production data and to facilitate research collaboration across institutions in France, Belgium and nearby countries.
  

Recent PhD graduates

_{First or current placement (when available) in parenthesis}

• Els Bekaert, October 2022, Understanding migration drivers : the role of health and climate factors
• Killian Foubert, January 2022, Essays on migration (intentions) and terrorism
• Bram De Lange, April 2021, State-Ownership and the European Economy
• Ruben Dewitte, January 2020, Firm heterogeneity in international trade
• Yelter Bollen, February 2018, The domestic politics of EU trade policy : the political-economy of CETA and anti-dumping in Belgium and the Netherlands (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
• Angelos Theodorakopoulos, August 2017, Internationalisation and firm performance (KU Leuven, VIVES - Research Centre for Regional Economics)
• Stijn Ronsse, December 2015, Explorations in Cliometrics (Idea Consult; Ghent University)
• Karolien Lenaerts, December 2014, Firm-level heterogeneity and the demand and supply side of foreign direct investment spillovers. (CEPS)  
• Victoria Purice, October 2015, Multinational activity and firm performance (University of Groningen)
• Samuel Standaert, September 2015, Economic integration and corruption : resolving measurement and endogeneity problems through state-space modeling (Ghent University)
• Ilse Ruyssen, April 2013, Determinants of international migration (Université catholique de Louvain)
  • All Graduates