Matthias Bauer
Email: matthias.bauer@ecipe.org
Office: +32 (0)2 289 1350 Mobile: +32 (0)499 053 105
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Areas of Expertise: European Union Eurozone Crisis EU Trade Agreements Digital Economy EU Single Market WTO and Globalization Services

Matthias Bauer is a German economist and Director at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE). He works on EU and global trade policy with a focus on digital and technology policymaking.
Matthias Bauer is the author of several studies, economic impact assessments and policy briefs in the fields of international trade, digital markets, the regulation of data, innovation, and intellectual property rights. He is regularly consulted by private and public sector organisations on a broad range of policy issues ranging from impact analysis to strategic advice.
Bauer grew up in Eastern Germany. He is an alumni of the US international visitor leadership program (IVLP). He studied business administration at the University of Hull, UK, and economics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. He received his Ph.D. degree after joining the Bundesbank graduate programme on the “Foundations of Global Financial Markets and Financial Stability”.
Before joining ECIPE, Matthias Bauer was the Coordinator of International Political Economy at the international cooperation division of Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Berlin. He previously held positions at DekaBank, UBS, Mercedes-Benz China, and worked as a start-up and business development consultant. Matthias is a member of Tutwa Europe’s economic policy expert network. He is also the co-founder of the German-based Institute for Digital Education (IfODiB).
ECIPE Occasional Papers
In Support of Market-Driven Standards
The EU published its new Standardisation Strategy in 2022. The strategy contains some good ideas to improve the way European standards are set. However, in its attempt to gain more control over technical standards, the EU risks killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The primary motivation behind the strategy is the belief that the process governing the way CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI – the three European Standardisation Organisations – take decisions over...
ECIPE Policy Briefs
Building Resilience? The Cybersecurity, Economic & Trade Impacts of Cloud Immunity Requirements
EU Member States should call on the EU’s Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA) and the European Commission to abandon immunity requirements in the proposed EU Cloud Certification Scheme (EUCS). With immunity requirements in the EUCS, the EU risks opening a Pandora’s box, paving the way for data localisation, foreign ownership restrictions, and local establishment requirements in digital industries globally leading to rising trade tensions. ENISA’s current...
ECIPE Policy Briefs
The Impacts of EU Strategy Autonomy Policies – A Primer for Member States
EU governments should be much more sceptical and critical of the EU’s strategic autonomy agenda and the new polices intended to achieve the EU’s “long-term” industrial and technological ambitions. The long-term costs for Member States’ economies and the process of economic convergence are largely ignored by the agenda. Negative impacts of strategic autonomy on trade openness and the international rules-based trading system are also greatly...
ECIPE Policy Briefs
The EU Digital Markets Act: Assessing the Quality of Regulation
The proposed Digital Markets Act (DMA) is an opportunity to prevent and remedy anti-competitive conduct by large digital platforms. If the Act is designed in an adequate manner to target specific problems, it can improve the contestability of platform services markets and markets that rely substantially on digital services. However, the DMA takes a novel approach to regulation, and novelty in concepts and regulatory requirements can lead to outcomes that later have...
Media Mention
Covid-19: what the EU can learn from the United States
Matthias Bauer attending an EP hearing on Strategic Autonomy and the resilience of pharmaceutical value chains in the...
Media Mention
Covid-19: what the EU can learn from the United States
Matthias Bauer attending an EP hearing on Strategic Autonomy and the resilience of pharmaceutical value chains in the...
Media Mention
Как законно се избягва плащането на данъци и близо или далеч е решението?
Matthias Bauer comments on OECD / G20 corporate tax reform and digital...
Media Mention
What’s In a Name? EU Digital Levy Isn’t a Tax, Vestager Says
Matthias Bauer comments on the European Commission's proposed digital levy regime for the...
Article
The impacts of EU Strategic Autonomy: How Member States should respond
Matthias Bauer arguing that achieving EU Strategic Autonomy critically relies on achieving a much more integrated continental market and policies...
Article
The impacts of EU Strategic Autonomy: How Member States should respond
Matthias Bauer arguing that achieving EU Strategic Autonomy critically relies on achieving a much more integrated continental market and policies...
Article
Why a global minimum corporate tax rate may never be implemented
Matthias Bauer argues that governments will continue to compete for investments and business activity by offering businesses subsidies and...
Article
The EU’s new digital and data strategy: condemned to fail
Matthias Bauer writes for Encompass on the new EU data and industrial...
Book or Paper
Measuring the Impacts of the European Union’s Approach to Open Strategic Autonomy
Report for ECIPE prepared by Frontier Economics on the short and long term macro-economic impacts of new EU policies and regulations that change the...
Book or Paper
Digital Market Act: Competition, Private Property, Innovation and the Interests of the Users
In a joint study with the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, Matthias Bauer analyses the consequences of the Digital Markets...
Book or Paper
The economic costs of restricting the cross-border flow of data
In a joint Kearney-ECIPE study, Dr Matthias Bauer and Dr Erik van der Marel analyse the economic impacts of restrictions on the free flow of data...
Book or Paper
Should Unfairness be Maintained in Corporate Taxation? The Disguise of the Tax Incidence in EU and OECD Corporate Tax Planning
This study is meant to address the failure of governments and international institutions (e.g. the EU, OECD and IMF) to account for the...
Speech or Presentation
Digital Taxes and Trade in Services
Matthias Bauer talks about myths and misconceptions in the debate about taxes on digital...
Speech or Presentation
Cybersecurity in the EU: Is there a European way?
Matthias Bauer discusses the Swedish postal authority's decision to ban Huawei and ZTE from Swedish telecoms markets because of perceived...
Speech or Presentation
Europe’s Quest for Technology Sovereignty: Opportunities and Pitfalls
Matthias Bauer presentation for ECIPE Webinar: Europe’s Quest for Technology Sovereignty – What Lessons Learned From the Covid-19 Crisis? on the...
Speech or Presentation
Should Unfairness be Maintained in Corporate Taxation?
Matthias Bauer's presentation of tax incidence effects and matters of tax...