De­part­ment of In­ter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ics, Gov­ern­ment and Busi­ness

Business and Government

Political science and political economy research at the department focuses on the intersection between business and government and how relations between business and government affect and are shaped by the surrounding political, economic, and societal environment. Faculty apply advanced quantitative and qualitative methods to generate systematic knowledge about business-government relations. The focus is on theoretically grounded empirical research that improves our understanding of government and the relations between business and politics – with practical relevance for policy makers.

International Business

International management and international economics research at the department focus on the societal side of international business. Faculty combine an emphasis on methodological excellence with a drive for empirical impact and relevance and a keen sensitivity to the broader societal contexts in which multinational enterprise (MNE) activity is situated. To this end, International Business research at the department is informed by a range of theoretical and methodological traditions from international economics, and international management disciplinary fields.

As a member of our staff, you will be welcomed into an open and exploratory research and educational environment. We have a high number of visiting researchers and seminars, incl. work-in-progress seminars to support collaboration and development of ideas. We also have several social events through the year where the whole department gets together and puts academic discourse aside for a moment. 
Work life balance is a priority for us. 

Vacant positions at CBS

If you are an External lecturer, you can find all practical information here

The project commences in 2026 and runs for five years. The project examines why firms and top-level corporate decision-makers sometimes engage in corrupt transactions with political elites – and why they, at other times, push for transparent and programmatic market regulation. It does so in eight countries around the world with implications for anti-corruption tools for firms, politicians, and regulators.

Coordinator: Mogens Kamp Justesen (mkj.egb@cbs.dk)
Carlsberg Foundation
Amount: DKK 13,000.000.-

Achieving work-life balance: citizens, policies and firm perspectives

How do men and women prioritize between their work and leisure time? Why are men still underrepresented in taking parental leave? Does the new EU directive on parental leave balance work and leisure time for men and women? What company policies for work-life balance do employees want at their workplace? These questions will be addressed in the project, with the aim of developing a new theory on work-life balance.

The project comprises 5 interrelated Work-packages, as well as a seminar series. The project started in January 2025, and will run until January 2029. 

Contact person Caroline de la Porte

Visit the project website

Governed by the rule of law, democratic states and institutions ensure fair and equal access to public goods. However, populism has gained momentum globally, challenging democracy and the rule of law. Driven by an in-group and out-group rhetoric, populists gain and maintain power by targeting institutions and interfering in creating and allocating public goods, in favour of particular groups. This creates countervailing pressures between the rule of law and populism, affecting the distribution of public goods. VALPOP aims to study how the creation and distribution of public goods are impacted by rule-of-law governance structures, populism, and societal networks of actors such as politicians, media organisations, and companies. Our analysis takes a network perspective, considering these actors’ interactions, collaborations, and potential collusions, to get a multi-dimensional view of how public goods are valued. The knowledge findings will not only help raise awareness of the role of societal networks and populism but also suggest measures that can strengthen the control mechanisms and civic engagement to safeguard the democratic governance of public goods.

• What caused individual Germans to vote for and join Nazi organizations is still not fully understood, in part because current research relies on either aggregate quantitative or small-scale qualitative data. To address this gap, we collect individual longitudinal data from the Denazification Questionnaires (Fragebogen) that were distributed in the U.S. occupation Zone in Germany between 1945-1949. The Fragebogen contain detailed information about individuals’ past membership in Nazi organisations, retrospective voting records, academic and occupational histories, income, as well as other rich socio-demographics. The data will allow us to answer (1) which demographic groups voted for or joined the Nazi movement, (2) which life events (e.g. unemployment) caused individuals to become members in Nazi organizations, and (3) whether individuals benefited financially from their membership. The project provides new micro-foundations on the causes and consequences of political extremism and the backsliding of the Weimar Republic from democracy to dictatorship.
• Coordinators: Jan Stuckatz (js.egb@cbs.dk), Victor Gay (TSE & IAST), Selina Hofstetter (Univ. of Zurich), Mikkel Dack (Rowan Univ.)
• German DFG & French ANR, Franco-German Grant in Humanities and Social Sciences
• Amount: EUR 339,584 (January 2022 – May 2026)

While elected representatives write policy, it is implemented by unelected bureaucratic agents with their own preferences. The distribution of power between the legislature and the bureaucracy is determined by the legislature’s capacity for ex-ante policy design and ex-post oversight. Parliaments around the world vary tremendously in their legislative capacity and thus de facto policy influence. Importantly, parliaments choose their own capacity by allocating resources necessary for legislative work. What determines how much capacity legislatures grant themselves? In this project, we first develop a formal theoretical model explaining the capacity choice of legislatures. We then create a new data set on legislative resources and capacity for the national parliaments of OECD member states and two subnational legislatures. We empirically investigate the determinants of capacity choices and their broader implications for democratic accountability.

What determines the functioning of the revolving door and what are its effects? The movement of public officials into firms consistently garners public attention. However, this “corporate revolving door” has mostly been studied in the U.S. This implies that we know little about how the revolving door works elsewhere and how institutions moderate its effects. We propose a preliminary theory of how a) institutions, b) the content of regulation, and c) regulatory uncertainty shapes the revolving door. We assemble the first big cross-national micro-level database of corporate revolvers to describe the functioning of the revolving door across 28 European countries. Moreover, we will field a survey experiment with businesspeople in 7 countries to causally investigate demand for revolvers and how firms use them. Finally, we will use unexpected deaths of corporate directors to assess the impact of revolvers on firm performance and how institutions moderate this effect.

• Coordinators: Benjamin Egerod (bcke.egb@cbs.dk) & Jan Stuckatz (js.egb@cbs.dk)
• Independent Research Fund Denmark, DFF Research Project 1
• Amount:  DKK 3,162,875 (July 2025 – December 2027) 

project5

The influence of corporate lobbying on democratic representation and the economy is a growing concern. Despite an abundance of research on the topic in the United States, a dearth of quantitative data hinders our understanding of the extent of corporate influence in Europe. The LOBCON-EU project, funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, will explore the impact of lobbying and corporate political connections in Europe. To that end, it will use an integrated theoretical framework adaptable to diverse European contexts. Moreover, it will analyse big data from the new German lobbying register, European Commission meetings with lobbyists, and Danish national registers. Thus, LOBCON-EU will examine how lobbyists’ background and the professional ties between corporations and policymakers impact politics and firm performance in Europe.

• Coordinator: Jan Stuckatz (js.egb@cbs.dk)
• Horizon Europe, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
• Amount: EUR 230,774.40 (July 2023 – June 2025)

Ukraine project

VR harrassment project

This project addresses a fundamental puzzle of electoral politics and its consequences for firms and public goods: Why do ordinary voters, including the poor, sometimes vote extremely rich business tycoons into political office? And does the election of tycoons matter for the firms they own and the voters they are supposed to serve? These questions are addressed in two related work-packages.

First, we examine sources of voter support for tycoons, focusing on perceptions of candidate competence, corruption, and the use of clientelism to mobilize voter support. We examine this using survey experiments in Ukraine and South Africa, where tycoons play a prominent role in politics. 

Second, we zoom in on the effects of tycoon incumbency for the firms they own and for public goods provision. To examine this, we exploit a series of regression-discontinuity designs using data from closely contested national elections across democracies and from local elections in Ukraine and South Africa.

‘China Horizons - Dealing with a Resurgent China' (DWARC) brings together leading China scholars in seven European countries with the aim of establishing a world class independent knowledge base on China in Europe. Our research covers society and culture, politics, economy, and foreign policy and emphasizes dissemination activities with a wide range of policy briefs, podcasts, public events as well as research publications. The network supports younger China scholars and coordinates a large group of associated experts in our Expert Network.

Coordinators: Professor Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard (keb.egb@cbs.dk), Postdoc Martin Bech (mab.egb@cbs.dk) and Postdoc Kasper Ingeman Beck (kib.egb@cbs.dk). Consortia members: University of Madrid, Sciences Po, Universita del Piemonte Orientale, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Asia Centre (Paris), Bruegel and MERICS. Budget: 4 million EUR. Duration: Nov 2022 – October 2025.  

Disclaimer: This project has received funding from the European Union’s HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions under grant agreement No. 101061700

Read more about DWARC here

We are hosting the danish section of this private Japanese foundation. The foundation supports exchange in education, research and culture between Japan and the Scandinavian countries by approx. 2 mill DKK yearly. 

Visit the SJSF homepage for information on application procedures

For the most part, those taking a PhD within EGB are drawn from fields such as international business, political science or policymaking and their research projects address major challenges facing business and society more broadly across the different continents. Those offered a PhD position by EGB must also be registered and accepted as a student by the CBS PhD School. 

EGB offers PhD courses considering theories, methodologies and other research challenges through its participation in a cluster of CBS departments (MOST). This cluster has a particular focus upon international business, politics, sociology, organizational studies, law, and digital transformation.

There is always very strong competition for full-time PhD positions when they are advertised (please see Jobs@CBS). We urge those who apply for posts with EGB to consider carefully the goals of the department and the disciplines that are represented. Although it will inevitably evolve over time we ask for a draft research proposal that identifies a problem or puzzle worthy of study and sets out some of the relevant theoretical and methodological issues that are likely to arise. Most PhD scholars will also be asked to contribute to CBS teaching programmes. 

PhD positions will be announced on the CBS job page  
When PhD positions become available, the advertisements will include details of online briefing sessions, so as to address practical questions about the application proposal and consider the research project ideas that might prove credible.

EGB PhD research lies, for the most part, at the intersections between business and government and international business. Recent and current PhD fellows have considered questions and topics such as:

• The Chinese model of state-led development and AI technologies
• Local elections, gender and corruption in developing countries
• The economic and political effects of natural resource extraction
• The global footprints of MNCs
• The political economy of innovative startups
• Industry 4.0 ecosystems
• Political party funding regimes
• Knowledge management in pharmaceutical MNCs
• The relationship between commercial interests and the development agenda
• The extent to which free trade agreements are in practice utilized by firms
• Democracy and inequality
• Western policy responses to the east Asian developmental state