Lorenzo Crippa

I am a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow. I study international regulatory politics and the global governance of multinational companies (MNCs). My research often investigates whether and to what extent international markets and their main actors (MNCs, investors) can promote or obstacle the furtherance of social and political goals.

My PhD thesis has investigated these themes in the case of the regulation of corporate corruption. I have studied the effects of anti-bribery regulations on companies’ foreign investment and portfolio performance. I showed that countries can leverage rules agreed-upon under the umbrella of international agreements to impose regulatory costs, thus deterring misconduct and pushing their regulatory reach beyond borders. I argued that, under international agreements, states can wield regulations against MNCs’ foreign crime by leveraging the very cross-border corporate networks that firms use to further criminal activity. I studied scope and limits of this regulatory strategy.

My current research expands my interest on regulatory politics and the governance of MNCs beyond corporate bribery. I currently apply similar conceptual tools developed in my PhD to focus on environmental regulation, corporate environmental behavior, and international climate negotiations. Methodologically, I apply computational methods for causal inference and text analysis to the study of regulatory politics and global governance.