Tao is a PhD candidate in the Department of International Development, funded by King’s-CSC. He also works as an economic consultant at the United Nations.

Tao holds an MSc Local Economic Development from LSE and an MSc Development Economics, with the best dissertation and overall best performance, from the University of Manchester.

His research interests are in the field of international business (IB), development economics, and economic geography, in particular, related to firm innovation, foreign direct investment (FDI), global value chains (GVCs), and applied micro-econometric analysis.

Research

Thesis title: Essays on Outward FDI and Firm Development in Emerging Economies: How GVCs and Industry 4.0 reshape the Internationalisation of MNEs?

Tao's research will try to combine theoretical frameworks of IB and GVCs in the era of Industry 4.0. The research will explore the role of internationalisation in inter- and intra-firm knowledge spillovers, inequality between employees and executives, and GVC governance networks.

He also works on AI and Knowledge Diffusion for Technology and Innovation Report 2025. His research has been funded by the Academy of International Business (AIB), Centre for Doctoral Studies, and King's SOF, and selected for the 2024 AIB Annual Conference, the 50th AIB-UKI conference, and the CEA European Conference. He has been nominated in the top 5 for the UNCTAD-AIB Award for Research on Investment and Development.

PhD supervision

• Principal supervisor: Yundan Gong
• Secondary supervisor: Jan Knoerich

Further Details

See Tao's research profile