Phillip McCalman

Benefits of Global Integration

Phillip McCalman’s research focuses on the benefits of global integration and the factors that determine their distribution. While the reduction of traditional trade barriers (e.g. tariffs) has increased the scale of success that firms can achieve globally, the distribution of the benefits is determined by other policies like intellectual property rights and regulations more generally. The benefits of policy harmonization and the avoidance of a fragmented policy landscape are clear from a commercial perspective. However, countries can benefit from tailoring policy to suit their needs. Mr. McCalman has explored this tension through research on the implications of the harmonization of intellectual property rights (both empirically and theoretically), the role of market power in a global setting, the incentives to manipulate regulations as a form of industrial policy to promote domestic firms and how differences across both firms and consumers condition their response and attitude to globalization.

During his visit to CESifo, Mr. McCalman will focus on two topics. The first is a study of the economics of foreign investment screening mechanisms. These policies now cover two thirds of FDI yet there is no theoretical or empirical economic analysis of their motivation or impact. The aim of this research is to address this gap by analyzing which forms of FDI are most impacted by screening and evaluating the net benefits of this policy. The second project concerns the design of trade agreements in an increasingly digital world. Since a digital environment is less restricted by physical barriers, the way in which citizens of different countries interact is also changing. This raises new issues such as privacy and content moderation that previously have not been considered relevant for international policy coordination. This research will address the manner in which digital interaction is new (e.g. the role of two-sided platforms in global markets) and how this alters the incentive and ability to achieve gains through international policy cooperation (i.e. trade agreements).

Phillip McCalman is Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne. He has been a member of faculty at the Australian National University and the University of California at Santa Cruz, and was a Peter B. Kenen Fellow at Princeton University and a Resident Scholar at the IMF. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.