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 Policy Briefs
Online Platform Regulation and Investment Attractiveness: A Look at the EU, the UK and Impacts on Small Open Economies
Small trade- and investment-oriented economies like the United Kingdom (UK) should carefully consider whether to regulate online platform services based on presumptions rather than evidence that consumers are being harmed. Flimsily enforced platform regulation can have a chilling effect on investments in business expansion and innovation, particularly in technology-adopting industries. Several countries around the world are designing new competition policies...
ECIPE Occasional Papers
Increasing Systemic Legal Risks in the EU: The Economic Impacts of Changes to the EU’s Product Liability Legislation
The EU’s Product Liability Directive (PLD) determines the rules for strict product liability in the EU. It establishes a framework in which manufacturers’ liability is determined solely based on the presence of defects in the product, regardless of the manufacturer’s fault. The PLD is intended to serve as a “safety net” when fault-based or contractual liability rules do not offer sufficient compensation to consumers. It operates independently from...
ECIPE Occasional Papers
What is Wrong with Europe’s Shattered Single Market? – Lessons from Policy Fragmentation and Misdirected Approaches to EU Competition Policy
What is wrong with Europe’s Single Market? The brief answer to that question is that it does not really exist – it is unsingle. The Single Market is in many ways a political illusion. It exists only nominally. Any company doing business in Europe faces significant barriers to cross-border exchanges within the EU, and it is these barriers that hamper companies' ability to scale and compete internationally on the back of innovation and economic integration. We...
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...
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
New Regulations in Europe’s Digital Economy: Design, Structure, Trade and Economic Effects
ECIPE report on EU digital regulations published by the Confederations of Swedish...
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...
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...