Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence seminar

Outward Internationalisation Policy and the EU: Theory & Practice - How the EU can promote its firms to become international players

A Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence and Centre for International Business at the University of Leeds (CIBUL) seminar by Dr Miguel Torres.

Most countries in the world have promotional schemes for exporting and, increasingly, for outward investment – that is, for domestic firms to establish operations abroad. The logic is that competition abroad is good for productivity and for long run competitiveness in the home country. However, the implementation of these schemes can be problematic. 

This seminar reports on a two-year project by Dr Miguel Torres, funded by the European Union, to investigate how policy can be improved. The challenge of policy re-design has become more pressing for mature economies, such as the EU, that face rising competition in world markets, and which must increasingly compete head-to-head with high-growth emerging economy firms.

For further information, please contact the Research Office at research.LUBS@leeds.ac.uk

About the speaker

Dr Miguel Torres was a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in Leeds University Business School’s Centre for International Business from 2015-2017. He has been associated with the University of Leeds since 2013 as a visiting researcher while working as a lecturer, at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. Miguel gained his PhD at the University of Aveiro in 2013, with a theoretical and empirical investigation of Portuguese pro-internationalisation policy. Prior to that he was an independent trade advisor working with firms to internationalise their businesses, from which he gained deep insights into the reality of international trade and investment promotion.

Miguel has published in leading academic journals in the field of international business, and is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Academy of International Business’s new Journal of International Business Policy. He is co-editor of the book Dead Firms: Causes and Effects of Cross-Border Corporate Insolvency (2016) (Advanced Series in Management. Emerald, Bingley, UK), an aspect of internationalisation in which he retains a keen interest. He was awarded his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of the Algarve in 2000, and an MSc in Management from the University of the Algarve and the Technical University of Lisbon, in 2004.