Invited Speakers
Assoc. Prof. Cristiano Morini
Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil
Dr. Cristiano Morini has a unique professional background combining experience in both the public and private sectors. In the public sector, he worked at the Ministry of Justice in Brasilia, Brazil. In the private sector, he was engaged in import and export processes within the logistics department. Since 2012, Dr. Morini has served as a full-time professor at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, and was named a Distinguished Teaching Professor in 2023. He has published over 40 academic papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. His research focuses on trade facilitation, customs administration, and digital entrepreneurship. As a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the Brazilian Government (2024), he supported the implementation of the Brazilian Single Window. Dr. Morini is actively involved with the Cross-Border Research Association (CBRA) in Switzerland. Over the past 26 years, he has participated in numerous professional and academic exchanges with leading experts across multiple countries. Currently, he leads a four-year research project on customs compliance public policy, funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).
Presentation
Title: Optimizing Customs Valuation: Enhancing Verification to Combat Import Undervaluation with AI-Powered Decision Support
Abstract:TBA
Assoc. Prof. Chi Sheh
University of the West, USA
Dr. Chi Sheh is an Associate Professor at University of the West (UWest), teaching in the areas of finance, accounting, statistics, and economics. Dr. Sheh received his PhD in Finance from the University of Houston. Dr. Sheh published a book chapter titled “A Buddhist Perspective on Humanizing Business”, where he lays out practical implications of Buddhism for Humanizing Business. More recently, Dr. Sheh has published several articles and served as the invited speaker to several international business conferences on the interface between artificial intelligence and business. Dr. Sheh is the Director of the UWest Socially Responsible Investment Fund, where he directs MBA students in the selection of socially responsible companies, mutual funds, and ETFs based on detailed analysis of financial data as well as ESG metrics. Dr. Sheh is also the founding advisor to the Sustainable Investing Club at UWest, which seeks concrete and practical ways to make investing more sustainable, and in the process serve as a platform to foster innovative ideas in sustainable investment. His professional experience also includes working as a financial analyst for Enron Corporation, in the areas of Power Trading, International Energy and Water Project Development, and Commercial Energy Risk Management and Services.
Presentation
Title: Crony Capitalism or National Interest? Investigating the Political Economy of the Trump 2025 Tariff Regime
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic investigation of the Trump administration’s 2025 tariff regime, evaluating whether its structure and exemption processes reflected economic or national security rationales, or whether they were instead shaped by crony capitalism—defined as the preferential allocation of policy benefits to politically connected firms. While prior research has documented the role of political contributions in shaping tariff exemptions during earlier phases of U.S. trade policy, no study has examined the 2025 regime in depth.
Employing a mixed-methods research design, we integrate large-scale quantitative analysis of exemption outcomes and firm-level political connections with qualitative examination of administrative procedures, lobbying disclosures, and targeted interviews with policymakers and industry stakeholders. This triangulated approach allows us to disentangle formal economic justifications from the informal political mechanisms that influenced tariff design and implementation.
The findings reveal a consistent pattern: despite public narratives of strategic economic defense, exemptions were disproportionately awarded to firms with strong political linkages. This evidence underscores the persistence of distributive politics in U.S. trade policy, even in an era of heightened geopolitical competition.