Peter Karl Kresl
My principal interests as an economist are now related to rational policy for urban economies in our rapidly changing international context. I now work primarily with the research group: The Global Urban Competitiveness Project (GUCP), of which I am Co-founder and President, headquartered in Beijing, China. Recently, I have been appointed Chief Expert for the High-quality Development Research Institute of China (National Business Daily), and research Consultant by the Guangzhou Urban Strategy Institute, in Guangzhou, China, for the period November 2017 to December 2020.
This work has resulted in several books and articles during the past decade, as well as presentations at conferences in major cities in Asia, North America and Europe. Most recently at the UN World Cities Day conference in Shanghai, the Beijing World City Conference and the First Summit of the Beijing Economic Circular Region, at the Basque Institute of Competitiveness, and at Cittá della Scienza, in Naples, Italy. I have also done work with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Fulbright Program, United National-Habitat II, U.S. Information Service, Centro Luigi Einaudi, International Center for Economic Research (Turin, Italy), among others.
My recent research has focused on urban competitiveness, the impact of an aging population on urban economies, economics of the cultural sector, economic creativity, and economic strategies for small cities and towns. Earlier I worked on the Canadian and Norwegian economies, on Canadian-American economic relations, and the European economic integration process.
My early interest in the Canadian Economy and in Canadian-American Economic Relations, during the 1970s and 1980s, developed into work with the Association for Canadian Studies in the US, where I ultimately served as President, and fund raiser, and with the International Council for Canadian Studies, in Ottawa, where I served as Executive Director.
I received a commission in 2011 to write a report on “urban competitiveness” for UN Habitat in Nairobi. As a consequence of this, I was invited to participate in a UN conference on urban policies for African cities, in Cape Town, in February, 2012.
In 2022, I participated in a project on “The Impact of COVID on Cities: Policy Responses of Local Leaders.” Involved in this project were ten researchers from the two universities in Venice, Italy, and another ten from the Global Urban Competitiveness Project. My paper focused on five places in Pennsylvania and two in New York. We gathered in Venice to share our results in September 2022.
In 2023, this same group will meet in Leipzig, Germany, to study what city leaders must do to regain the lost economic competitiveness and livability of their cities in the challenging post-COVID years ahead.
I am Charles P. Vaughan professor emeritus of economics at Bucknell University. During my tenure there, I led semester-long study programs twice each in London and Tours (France), and study tours in Canada, China, Scandinavia and the Alpine region of Europe. I also served as visiting professor at McGill University and Carleton University in Canada, the Norwegian School of Economics, Lund University in Sweden and St. Lawrence University.