The third Kiel-Göttingen-CEPR Conference “China in the Global Economy” will take place on June 30 and July 1, 2026, at the Berlin Representation of the State Government Schleswig-Holstein. The conference will bring together leading scholars, policy experts, and practitioners to discuss China’s evolving role in the global economy, its influence on international trade, investment, industrial policy, finance, and geopolitics, and the broader implications of these developments for Europe and the world. Organized in cooperation with the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the University of Göttingen, and CEPR, the event will provide an important forum for academic exchange and dialogue between research and policy.

China’s growing economic and geopolitical influence continues to reshape global production, trade relations, financial markets, technological competition, and international institutions. At the same time, trade conflicts, industrial policies, export controls, supply-chain disruptions, critical mineral investments, and changing patterns of political influence are creating new challenges for governments, firms, and societies. Against this background, the conference aims to deepen scholarly understanding of China’s role in the global economy and to connect academic research with current policy debates. Its location in Berlin will further support exchange between researchers, policymakers, and representatives from business and civil society.

The program will feature two distinguished keynote speakers: Chang-Tai Hsieh from the University of Chicago, CEPR, and NBER, who will speak on where China is heading, and Fabrizio Zilibotti from Yale University, CEPR, and NBER, who will present on China’s growth and structural transformation. The conference will also include research sessions on the trade war and its consequences, industrial policy, institutions and development, global supply-chain disruptions, energy and transition, geopolitics, finance, productivity, and political influence. In addition, a Global China Conversation will examine how the German automotive industry can respond to “China Shock 2.0,” while a Kiel-MERICS Policy Panel will discuss how Europe can shape its strategic response to geoeconomic disruption.

The conference is organized by Andreas Fuchs, Holger Görg, Lei Li, Wan-Hsin Liu, Moritz Schularick, Christoph Trebesch, and Xiaohua Yu. The organizers gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung within the project “Global Producers in China: Empirical Evidence on FDI, Product Mix, and Emissions,” the VolkswagenStiftung within the Momentum project “Tapping Innovative Data Sources to Analyze the Impact of Authoritarian States on Global Development,” and the DFG Research Training Group “China’s Geoeconomic Rise and the Accumulation of Structural Power” (China-GRASP).

For further information, please visit the external Conference Website.