Saul Estrin

Saul Estrin is a Professor of Managerial Economics and Strategy and the founding Head of the Department of Management. He was formerly Adecco Professor of Business and Society at London Business School where he was the Director of the CIS Middle Europe Centre and Research Director of the Centre for New and Emerging Markets. At LSE he is affiliated with the Centre for Economic Performance and was the Research Director of the Entrepreneurship Institute.

Saul’s research has long focused on the micro-economics of comparative economic systems, with early interests in state owned firms, labour-managed firms, planning and socialist economies. He was involved in the transition economies moving from socialism to capitalism, researching as well as policy advising on issues around privatisation and the improved performance of labour markets. Much of this work was undertaken under auspices of the World Bank, OECD and EBRD.

In recent years, he has concentrated on international business strategy issues and entrepreneurship. His work on international business has been concerned with the factors driving foreign direct investment to emerging economies, and the impact of that investment on the host countries. More recently, he has analysed the behaviour and performance of some archetypical enterprise types in emerging economies, namely Business Groups and State Owned firms. He has also contributed to the literature on multinational enterprises from emerging economies, including case studies of firms from Turkey and China.

His research on entrepreneurship has focused on the institutional environment conducive to more ambitious forms of entrepreneurialism, with papers about the impact of institutional quality, the impact of state interventionism, innovation and social entrepreneurship. He is currently working on equity crowdfunding and angel investing, institutional factors conducive to entrepreneurship and innovation, including cultural factors, and the economics of social entrepreneurship.

Saul also has considerable practitioner experience. He was for twelve years a non-executive Director at Barings, Emerging Markets Fund and was also a member of the Academic Panel of the postal regulator, Postcomm. He has taught on a number of customised executive programmes for major companies and acted as a consultant for multilateral and domestic agencies.

Expertise:

• institutions in emerging markets and their impact on foreign direct investment and entrepreneurial activity; state owned firms, business groups and social enterprises in emerging markets; internationalisation of firms in emerging markets; early stage entrepreneurial finance; equity crowdfunding and angel investing