Karsten Mau

ifo/CESifo Visiting Researcher

Karsten Mau, Maastricht University, CESifo Guest from 19 to 23 October 2026.

Cross-Border Supply Chain Linkages

Karsten Mau’s recent and ongoing work in international trade focuses on the development of novel, data-driven methods to infer, document, and evaluate cross-border supply chain linkages and economic dependencies. Research in economic development focuses on (place-based) industrial policies, such as Special Economic Zones or international trade infrastructure. During his visit to CESifo, Mr. Mau will work on a research grant proposal to formally study the (global) sourcing strategies of firms and the economic interdependencies that result at more aggregated levels. Besides this, he looks forward to discuss research with members (and potentially other visitors) of the ifo Center for International Economics, to develop ideas and explore potential opportunities for collaboration on policy-relevant research.

Mr. Mau’s research addresses questions in international trade and economic development, including industrial policies, with a focus on China, the EU, and emerging economies. His work has been published in peer-reviewed general interest and field journals in economics, including the European Economic Review, Journal of Development Economics, Labour Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and the Review of World Economics. He is also co-author of CESifo Working Paper No. 12027 (2025): “International transport infrastructure and regional economic development.”

Karsten Mau is an Associate Professor of Economics at Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics (UM-SBE). He joined UM-SBE in late 2017, after completing his PhD in Economics at the University of Hamburg and working as a lecturer and post-doctoral researcher at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Since 2022, he also functions as Director of the BSc EBE/IB Specialization: Emerging Markets at UM-SBE.