He explores how global market integration impacts on the prospects of economic growth and convergence for the poor in nations and regions.
This research has been recognized with the Juan Luis Londoño Prize, presented to the best paper on social policy in the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) Conference program, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, October 15–17, 2015 (“Educational, Labor Market, and Welfare Impacts of Scholarships for Private Secondary School: Evidence from Colombia,” co-authored with Eric Bettinger, Michael Kremer, Carlos Medina, Christian Posso and Juan Saavedra); and also with the First Prize for Best Contribution in the area of “Globalization, Regulation and Development” at the Global Development Network Annual Conference Program, Prague, Czech Republic, January 16–18, 2010 (“Trade Reforms and Market Selection: Evidence from Manufacturing Plants in Colombia,” co-authored with Marcela Eslava, John Haltiwanger and Adriana Kugler.)
In his work on spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI), Kugler has shown that the presence of multinational corporation affiliates (MNC) can yield technological opportunities for host country producers in upstream sectors, especially when the MNC subsidiary is an exporter and the potential spillover recipient firm has absorptive capacity to adopt new technology.
When subsidiaries and local firms are connected through the production chain, then FDI generates transmission of technological knowhow as input suppliers are the recipients of information from their clients.
In particular, the fact that exporter subsidiaries are more prone to transmit information to local firms implies that vertical FDI is more likely to generate spillovers.
Since vertical FDI involves the import of components and assembly for exports, the incentive to prevent technology leakages to domestic firms is diminished, as they are not in the competitive fringe.
Research on the determinants FDI location shows evidence consistent with the incorporation of skilled migrants into business networks at the destination country.
(See e.g. Souraya El Yaman, Maurice Kugler and Hillel Rapoport (2006), "Migration and Foreign Investments across the European Union: What are the Links?"
And there is an indirect channel since the greater supply of human capital can generate creation of skilled jobs, through a thick-market externality.
The likelihood that new human capital formation, associated with remittances, exceeds brain drain is higher in the context of well-functioning education systems and labor markets.
Research on export dynamics suggests that experimentation is an important component of the investment to establish presence in a new market, understood as a product and destination combination.
Kugler has held academic positions at the economics departments of Universidad de Los Andes, in Colombia, and University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom.