6 Nov 2025
A new three-year research collaboration between the CEU and LMU will explore how industrial policies shaped Central Europe’s economic development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Titled “Globalization and Industrial Policy: Evidence from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (IP-KuK)”, the €800,000 project is led by Gábor Békés (CEU) and Claudia Steinwender (LMU). It will examine how export promotion and tariff policies between 1870 and 1910 influenced firm performance, innovation, and international competitiveness.
To trace these dynamics, the researchers will look at 1900 Paris Exhibition’s role in promoting Hungarian firms internationally, and export-contingent input tariff reductions in the milling industry during the 1880s.
The project draws on newly compiled firm-level data from regional archives and applies modern methods like machine learning and generative AI to connect historical evidence with contemporary debates on industrial strategy and growth.
The project will also involve Réka Juhász (University of British Columbia, Canada) and Tamás Vonyó (Bocconi University, Italy) as external collaborators. Scheduled to begin on January 1, 2026, under the Weave collaboration scheme, it will additionally create a comprehensive catalogue of economic policies from the era.