Wim Naudé

Wim Naudé is Research Affiliate at ISDC. He is Professor of the Economics of Innovation, Trade and Development in the TIME Research Area at RWTH Aachen University, Germany.  He is also Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of Coimbra, Portugal and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Furthermore, he is a Fellow of the African Studies Centre, University of Leiden, the Netherlands. 

Previously he has been Extraordinary Professor at Maastricht University, the Netherlands; Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, Finland, and Lecturer and Research Officer at the University of Oxford, UK. He has also been Visiting Professor at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Visiting Faculty at the BIARI of Brown University, and Affiliated Professor at Centrum Catolica Graduate School of Management in Lima, Peru.

His research is concerned with the economics of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, in particularly how AI, digital transformation and technologies for the energy transition impact on sustainable development, trade, security and peace and growth.

Wim has contributed to the work of virtually all global development organizations (UNDP, UNCTAD, UNIDO, UN-DESA, UNU, WTO, ITC, World Bank, etc).  He has also co-directed a research project for the Volkswagen Stiftung’s Artificial Intelligence and the Society of the Future program, which resulted in the first Cambridge University Press textbook on the Economics of Artificial Intelligence (published 2024).

Stanford University/Elsevier ranks Wim amongst the top 2% of scientists in the world.  

He is a graduate of the University of Warwick (UK)

• Business and Entrepreneurship is Declining as Scholarly Field: Empirical Evidence, PLOS ONE,  20(5): e0323297, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323297
• Trump’s Trade War:  EU Exports at Risk and Alternative Markets, Global Economy Journal, Online Ready, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1142/S219456592550006X  (with M. Cameron).
• The End of the Empire that Entrepreneurship Built: How Seven Sources of Rot will Undo the West,  Foundations and Trends® in Entrepreneurship, 2024,  20 (5): 400–492.  https://doi.org/10.1561/0300000126
• Late Industrialisation and Global Value Chains under Platform Capitalism,  Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, 2023, 50: 91-119.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s40812-022-00240-2
• From the Entrepreneurial to the Ossified Economy, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2022, 46 (1): 105-131. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beab042
• COVID-19 and the City: Did Urbanized Countries Suffer more Fatalities?” Cities, 131: 103-909, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103909  (with Nagler, P.).
• Artificial Intelligence in Economics, Journal for Labour Market Research, 2022, 56 (12). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12651-022-00319-2  (with Gries, T).
• Refugee Entrepreneurship: Context and Directions for Future Research, Small Business Economics, 2021, 56: 933-945. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00310-1 (with Desai, S. and Stel, N.)
• Extreme Events, Entrepreneurial Start-Ups, and Innovation: Theoretical Conjectures, Economics of Disasters & Climate Change, 2021, 5(3): 329-353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41885-021-00089-0 (with Gries, T.).
• How do Role Conflict Intensity and Coping Strategies affect the Success of Women Entrepreneurs in Africa?” Journal of Small Business Management, 59 (6): 1180–1210, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1080/00472778.2020.1756121   (with Hundera, M., Duysters, G. and Dijkhuizen, J.).
• Reorienting Entrepreneurial Support Infrastructure to Tackle a Social Crisis: A Rapid Response, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 14:  e00181, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2020.e00181 (P. Munoz,   T. Williams, and F. Rodrigo).
• The Intersection of the Fields of Entrepreneurship and Development Economics: A Review Towards a New View, Journal of Economic Surveys, 33 (2): 389–403, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12286  (with Hessels, J.).
• Non-Farm Enterprises in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: New Empirical Evidence, Food Policy,  67: 175–219, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2016.09.019. (with Nagler, P.).
• Spatial Proximity and Firm Performance: Evidence from Non-Farm Rural Enterprises in Ethiopia and Nigeria,  Regional Studies, 51 (5):  688–700, 2016, https://10.1080/00343404.2015.1131896(with Owoo, N.)
• Playing the Lottery or Dressing Up? A Model of Firm-Level Heterogeneity and the Decision to Export, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance,  2015, 58: 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qref.2015.02.010  (with Bilkic, N. and Gries, T.)
• Business under Fire: Entrepreneurship and Violent Conflict in Developing Countries, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 57: 3–19, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002712464846  (with Brück, T. and Verwimp, P.).
• Entrepreneurship is not a Binding Constraint on Growth and Development in the Poorest Countries, World Development, 39 (1):  33–44, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2010.05.005
• Entrepreneurship and Human Development: A Capability Approach, Journal of Public Economics, 95 (3):  216–224, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.11.008  (with Gries, T.).
• Vulnerability, Trade, Financial Flows and State Failure in Small Island Developing States,  Journal of Development Studies, 46 (5): 815–827, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1080/00220381003623822(with Santos-Paulino, A. and McGillivray, M.).
• Entrepreneurship and Structural Economic Transformation, Small Business Economics Journal, 34 (1):  13–29, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-009-9192-8 (with Gries, T.).