Economic Diplomacy and National Prosperity

The government's economic diplomacy agenda guides a substantial portion of DFAT activities. The ANU and DFAT aim to collaborate to provide evidence on the effectiveness of economic diplomacy in contributing to Australia's exports and inflow of foreign investment. The project will develop a dataset to capture characteristics of Australia's diplomatic sector, export and FDI data bilaterally, use a gravity model to fill the void on the determinants of trade and investment through diplomacy for Australia, and estimate the benefits to specific export industries. The project will also inform DFAT's resource allocation, risk management and will assist advocacy in the public domain on trade and investment issues.