Project acronym 1stProposal
Project An alternative development of analytic number theory and applications
Researcher (PI) ANDREW Granville
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE1, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary The traditional (Riemann) approach to analytic number theory uses the zeros of zeta functions. This requires the associated multiplicative function, say f(n), to have special enough properties that the associated Dirichlet series may be analytically continued. In this proposal we continue to develop an approach which requires less of the multiplicative function, linking the original question with the mean value of f. Such techniques have been around for a long time but have generally been regarded as “ad hoc”. In this project we aim to show that one can develop a coherent approach to the whole subject, not only reproving all of the old results, but also many new ones that appear inaccessible to traditional methods.
Our first goal is to complete a monograph yielding a reworking of all the classical theory using these new methods and then to push forward in new directions. The most important is to extend these techniques to GL(n) L-functions, which we hope will now be feasible having found the correct framework in which to proceed. Since we rarely know how to analytically continue such L-functions this could be of great benefit to the subject.
We are developing the large sieve so that it can be used for individual moduli, and will determine a strong form of that. Also a new method to give asymptotics for mean values, when they are not too small.
We wish to incorporate techniques of analytic number theory into our theory, for example recent advances on mean values of Dirichlet polynomials. Also the recent breakthroughs on the sieve suggest strong links that need further exploration.
Additive combinatorics yields important results in many areas. There are strong analogies between its results, and those for multiplicative functions, especially in large value spectrum theory, and its applications. We hope to develop these further.
Much of this is joint work with K Soundararajan of Stanford University.
Summary
The traditional (Riemann) approach to analytic number theory uses the zeros of zeta functions. This requires the associated multiplicative function, say f(n), to have special enough properties that the associated Dirichlet series may be analytically continued. In this proposal we continue to develop an approach which requires less of the multiplicative function, linking the original question with the mean value of f. Such techniques have been around for a long time but have generally been regarded as “ad hoc”. In this project we aim to show that one can develop a coherent approach to the whole subject, not only reproving all of the old results, but also many new ones that appear inaccessible to traditional methods.
Our first goal is to complete a monograph yielding a reworking of all the classical theory using these new methods and then to push forward in new directions. The most important is to extend these techniques to GL(n) L-functions, which we hope will now be feasible having found the correct framework in which to proceed. Since we rarely know how to analytically continue such L-functions this could be of great benefit to the subject.
We are developing the large sieve so that it can be used for individual moduli, and will determine a strong form of that. Also a new method to give asymptotics for mean values, when they are not too small.
We wish to incorporate techniques of analytic number theory into our theory, for example recent advances on mean values of Dirichlet polynomials. Also the recent breakthroughs on the sieve suggest strong links that need further exploration.
Additive combinatorics yields important results in many areas. There are strong analogies between its results, and those for multiplicative functions, especially in large value spectrum theory, and its applications. We hope to develop these further.
Much of this is joint work with K Soundararajan of Stanford University.
Max ERC Funding
2 011 742 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-08-01, End date: 2020-07-31
Project acronym 3D-E
Project 3D Engineered Environments for Regenerative Medicine
Researcher (PI) Ruth Elizabeth Cameron
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARSOF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2012-ADG_20120216
Summary "This proposal develops a unified, underpinning technology to create novel, complex and biomimetic 3D environments for the control of tissue growth. As director of Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, I have recently been approached by medical colleagues to help to solve important problems in the separate therapeutic areas of breast cancer, cardiac disease and blood disorders. In each case, the solution lies in complex 3D engineered environments for cell culture. These colleagues make it clear that existing 3D scaffolds fail to provide the required complex orientational and spatial anisotropy, and are limited in their ability to impart appropriate biochemical and mechanical cues.
I have a strong track record in this area. A particular success has been the use of a freeze drying technology to make collagen based porous implants for the cartilage-bone interface in the knee, which has now been commercialised. The novelty of this proposal lies in the broadening of the established scientific base of this technology to enable biomacromolecular structures with:
(A) controlled and complex pore orientation to mimic many normal multi-oriented tissue structures
(B) compositional and positional control to match varying local biochemical environments,
(C) the attachment of novel peptides designed to control cell behaviour, and
(D) mechanical control at both a local and macroscopic level to provide mechanical cues for cells.
These will be complemented by the development of
(E) robust characterisation methodologies for the structures created.
These advances will then be employed in each of the medical areas above.
This approach is highly interdisciplinary. Existing working relationships with experts in each medical field will guarantee expertise and licensed facilities in the required biological disciplines. Funds for this proposal would therefore establish a rich hub of mutually beneficial research and opportunities for cross-disciplinary sharing of expertise."
Summary
"This proposal develops a unified, underpinning technology to create novel, complex and biomimetic 3D environments for the control of tissue growth. As director of Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, I have recently been approached by medical colleagues to help to solve important problems in the separate therapeutic areas of breast cancer, cardiac disease and blood disorders. In each case, the solution lies in complex 3D engineered environments for cell culture. These colleagues make it clear that existing 3D scaffolds fail to provide the required complex orientational and spatial anisotropy, and are limited in their ability to impart appropriate biochemical and mechanical cues.
I have a strong track record in this area. A particular success has been the use of a freeze drying technology to make collagen based porous implants for the cartilage-bone interface in the knee, which has now been commercialised. The novelty of this proposal lies in the broadening of the established scientific base of this technology to enable biomacromolecular structures with:
(A) controlled and complex pore orientation to mimic many normal multi-oriented tissue structures
(B) compositional and positional control to match varying local biochemical environments,
(C) the attachment of novel peptides designed to control cell behaviour, and
(D) mechanical control at both a local and macroscopic level to provide mechanical cues for cells.
These will be complemented by the development of
(E) robust characterisation methodologies for the structures created.
These advances will then be employed in each of the medical areas above.
This approach is highly interdisciplinary. Existing working relationships with experts in each medical field will guarantee expertise and licensed facilities in the required biological disciplines. Funds for this proposal would therefore establish a rich hub of mutually beneficial research and opportunities for cross-disciplinary sharing of expertise."
Max ERC Funding
2 486 267 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-04-01, End date: 2018-03-31
Project acronym ARTIMATTER
Project "Lego-Style Materials, Structures and Devices Assembled on Demand from Isolated Atomic Planes"
Researcher (PI) Andre Geim
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE3, ERC-2012-ADG_20120216
Summary "Following the advent of graphene with its wide range of unique properties, several other one-atom-thick crystals have been isolated and their preliminary studies have been undertaken. They range from semiconducting monolayers of MoS2 and NbSe2, which similar to graphene exhibit the electric field effect and relatively high electronic quality, to wide-gap insulators such as boron-nitride monolayers that can serve as atomically-thin tunnel barriers.
This library of two-dimensional crystals opens a possibility to construct various 3D structures with on-demand properties, which do not exist in nature but can be assembled in Lego style by stacking individual atomic planes on top of each other in a desired sequence. This project is to explore this new avenue.
We will design, fabricate and study multilayer materials ranging from basic heterostructures that consist of a few alternating layers of graphene and boron nitride and already exhibit a rich spectrum of new phenomena, as recently demonstrated by the applicant’s group, to complex artificial materials containing many layers of different 2D crystals and mimicking, for example, layered superconductors. In a similar manner, various electronic, optoelectronic, micromechanical and other devices will be developed and investigated. The applicant’s aim is to search for new materials with unique properties, novel devices with better characteristics and new physics that is likely to emerge along the way.
The proposed research offers many exciting opportunities and can lead to the development of a large unexplored field with impact exceeding even that of graphene research. This presents a unique, once-in-decade, opportunity to make a very significant breakthrough in condensed matter physics and materials science."
Summary
"Following the advent of graphene with its wide range of unique properties, several other one-atom-thick crystals have been isolated and their preliminary studies have been undertaken. They range from semiconducting monolayers of MoS2 and NbSe2, which similar to graphene exhibit the electric field effect and relatively high electronic quality, to wide-gap insulators such as boron-nitride monolayers that can serve as atomically-thin tunnel barriers.
This library of two-dimensional crystals opens a possibility to construct various 3D structures with on-demand properties, which do not exist in nature but can be assembled in Lego style by stacking individual atomic planes on top of each other in a desired sequence. This project is to explore this new avenue.
We will design, fabricate and study multilayer materials ranging from basic heterostructures that consist of a few alternating layers of graphene and boron nitride and already exhibit a rich spectrum of new phenomena, as recently demonstrated by the applicant’s group, to complex artificial materials containing many layers of different 2D crystals and mimicking, for example, layered superconductors. In a similar manner, various electronic, optoelectronic, micromechanical and other devices will be developed and investigated. The applicant’s aim is to search for new materials with unique properties, novel devices with better characteristics and new physics that is likely to emerge along the way.
The proposed research offers many exciting opportunities and can lead to the development of a large unexplored field with impact exceeding even that of graphene research. This presents a unique, once-in-decade, opportunity to make a very significant breakthrough in condensed matter physics and materials science."
Max ERC Funding
2 200 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-05-01, End date: 2018-04-30
Project acronym BABE
Project Bodies across borders: oral and visual memory in Europe and beyond
Researcher (PI) Luisella Passerini
Host Institution (HI) EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Country Italy
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary This project intends to study intercultural connections in contemporary Europe, engaging both native and ‘new’ Europeans. These connections are woven through the faculties of embodied subjects – memory, visuality and mobility – and concern the movement of people, ideas and images across the borders of European nation-states. These faculties are connected with that of affect, an increasingly important concept in history and the social sciences. Memory will be understood not only as oral or direct memory, but also as cultural memory, embodied in various cultural products. Our study aims to understand new forms of European identity, as these develop in an increasingly diasporic world. Europe today is not only a key site of immigration, after having been for centuries an area of emigration, but also a crucial point of arrival in a global network designed by mobile human beings.
Three parts will make up the project. The first will engage with bodies, their gendered dimension, performative capacities and connection to place. It will explore the ways certain bodies are ‘emplaced’ as ‘European’, while others are marked as alien, and contrast these discourses with the counter-narratives by visual artists. The second part will extend further the reflection on the role of the visual arts in challenging an emergent ‘Fortress Europe’ but also in re-imagining the memory of European colonialism. The work of some key artists will be shown to students in Italy and the Netherlands, both recent migrants and ‘natives’, creating an ‘induced reception’. The final part of the project will look at alternative imaginations of Europe, investigating the oral memories and ‘mental maps’ created by two migrant communities in Europe: from Peru and from the Horn of Africa.
Examining the heterogeneous micro-productions of mobility – whether ‘real’ or imagined/envisioned – will thus yield important lessons for the historical understanding of inclusion and exclusion in today’s Europe.
Summary
This project intends to study intercultural connections in contemporary Europe, engaging both native and ‘new’ Europeans. These connections are woven through the faculties of embodied subjects – memory, visuality and mobility – and concern the movement of people, ideas and images across the borders of European nation-states. These faculties are connected with that of affect, an increasingly important concept in history and the social sciences. Memory will be understood not only as oral or direct memory, but also as cultural memory, embodied in various cultural products. Our study aims to understand new forms of European identity, as these develop in an increasingly diasporic world. Europe today is not only a key site of immigration, after having been for centuries an area of emigration, but also a crucial point of arrival in a global network designed by mobile human beings.
Three parts will make up the project. The first will engage with bodies, their gendered dimension, performative capacities and connection to place. It will explore the ways certain bodies are ‘emplaced’ as ‘European’, while others are marked as alien, and contrast these discourses with the counter-narratives by visual artists. The second part will extend further the reflection on the role of the visual arts in challenging an emergent ‘Fortress Europe’ but also in re-imagining the memory of European colonialism. The work of some key artists will be shown to students in Italy and the Netherlands, both recent migrants and ‘natives’, creating an ‘induced reception’. The final part of the project will look at alternative imaginations of Europe, investigating the oral memories and ‘mental maps’ created by two migrant communities in Europe: from Peru and from the Horn of Africa.
Examining the heterogeneous micro-productions of mobility – whether ‘real’ or imagined/envisioned – will thus yield important lessons for the historical understanding of inclusion and exclusion in today’s Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 488 501 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31
Project acronym CALENDARS
Project Calendars in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: standardization and fixation
Researcher (PI) Sacha David Stern
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary This project will study how calendars evolved in late antique and medieval societies towards ever increasing standardization and fixation. The study of calendars has been neglected by historians as a technical curiosity; but in fact, the calendar was at the heart of ancient and medieval culture, as a structured concept of time, and as an organizing principle of social life.
The history of calendars in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was a complex social and cultural process, closely related to politics, science, and religion. The standardization and fixation of calendars was related in Antiquity to the rise of large, centralized empires in the Mediterranean and Near East, and in the Middle Ages, to the rise of the monotheistic, universalist religions of Christianity and Islam. The standardization and fixation of calendars contributed also, more widely, to the formation of a unified and universal culture in the ancient and medieval worlds.
The standardization and fixation of ancient and medieval calendars will be analyzed by focusing on four, specific manifestations of this process: (1) the diffusion and standardization of the seven-day week in the Roman Empire; (2) the production of hemerologia (comparative calendar tables) in late Antiquity; (3) the use of Jewish calendar fixed cycles in medieval manuscripts; (4) the production and diffusion of monographs on the calendar by medieval Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars, especially al-Biruni’s Chronology of the Ancient Nations and Isaac Israeli’s Yesod Olam. Study of these four research areas will enable us to formulate a general interpretation and explanation of how and why calendars became increasingly standardized and fixed.
This will be the first ever study of calendars on this scale, covering a wide range of historical periods and cultures, and involving a wide range of disciplines: social history, ancient and medieval astronomy and mathematics, study of religions, literature, epigraphy, and codicology.
Summary
This project will study how calendars evolved in late antique and medieval societies towards ever increasing standardization and fixation. The study of calendars has been neglected by historians as a technical curiosity; but in fact, the calendar was at the heart of ancient and medieval culture, as a structured concept of time, and as an organizing principle of social life.
The history of calendars in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was a complex social and cultural process, closely related to politics, science, and religion. The standardization and fixation of calendars was related in Antiquity to the rise of large, centralized empires in the Mediterranean and Near East, and in the Middle Ages, to the rise of the monotheistic, universalist religions of Christianity and Islam. The standardization and fixation of calendars contributed also, more widely, to the formation of a unified and universal culture in the ancient and medieval worlds.
The standardization and fixation of ancient and medieval calendars will be analyzed by focusing on four, specific manifestations of this process: (1) the diffusion and standardization of the seven-day week in the Roman Empire; (2) the production of hemerologia (comparative calendar tables) in late Antiquity; (3) the use of Jewish calendar fixed cycles in medieval manuscripts; (4) the production and diffusion of monographs on the calendar by medieval Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars, especially al-Biruni’s Chronology of the Ancient Nations and Isaac Israeli’s Yesod Olam. Study of these four research areas will enable us to formulate a general interpretation and explanation of how and why calendars became increasingly standardized and fixed.
This will be the first ever study of calendars on this scale, covering a wide range of historical periods and cultures, and involving a wide range of disciplines: social history, ancient and medieval astronomy and mathematics, study of religions, literature, epigraphy, and codicology.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 006 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2018-01-31
Project acronym COIMBRA
Project Combinatorial methods in noncommutative ring theory
Researcher (PI) Agata Smoktunowicz
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE1, ERC-2012-ADG_20120216
Summary As noted by T Y Lam in his book, A first course in noncommutative rings, noncommutative ring theory is a fertile meeting ground for group theory (group rings), representation theory (modules), functional analysis (operator algebras), Lie theory (enveloping algebras), algebraic geometry (finitely generated algebras, differential operators), noncommutative algebraic geometry (graded domains), arithmetic (orders, Brauer groups), universal algebra (co-homology of rings, projective modules) and quantum physics (quantum matrices). As such, noncommutative ring theory is an area which has the potential to produce developments in many areas and in an efficient manner. The main aim of the project is to develop methods which could be applicable not only in ring theory but also in other areas, and then apply them to solve several important open questions in mathematics. The Principal Investigator, along with two PhD students and two post doctorates, propose to: study basic open questions on infinite dimensional associative noncommutative algebras; pool their expertise so as to tackle problems from a number of related areas of mathematics using noncommutative ring theory, and develop new approaches to existing problems that will benefit future researchers. A part of our methodology would be to first improve (in some cases) Bergman's Diamond Lemma, and then apply it to several open problems. The Diamond Lemma gives bases for the algebras defined by given sets of relations. In general, it is very difficult to determine if the algebra given by a concrete set of relations is non-trivial or infinite dimensional. Our approach is to introduce smaller rings, which we will call platinum rings. The next step would then be to apply the Diamond Lemma to the platinum ring instead of the original rings. Such results would have many applications in group theory, noncommutative projective geometry, nonassociative algebras and no doubt other areas as well.
Summary
As noted by T Y Lam in his book, A first course in noncommutative rings, noncommutative ring theory is a fertile meeting ground for group theory (group rings), representation theory (modules), functional analysis (operator algebras), Lie theory (enveloping algebras), algebraic geometry (finitely generated algebras, differential operators), noncommutative algebraic geometry (graded domains), arithmetic (orders, Brauer groups), universal algebra (co-homology of rings, projective modules) and quantum physics (quantum matrices). As such, noncommutative ring theory is an area which has the potential to produce developments in many areas and in an efficient manner. The main aim of the project is to develop methods which could be applicable not only in ring theory but also in other areas, and then apply them to solve several important open questions in mathematics. The Principal Investigator, along with two PhD students and two post doctorates, propose to: study basic open questions on infinite dimensional associative noncommutative algebras; pool their expertise so as to tackle problems from a number of related areas of mathematics using noncommutative ring theory, and develop new approaches to existing problems that will benefit future researchers. A part of our methodology would be to first improve (in some cases) Bergman's Diamond Lemma, and then apply it to several open problems. The Diamond Lemma gives bases for the algebras defined by given sets of relations. In general, it is very difficult to determine if the algebra given by a concrete set of relations is non-trivial or infinite dimensional. Our approach is to introduce smaller rings, which we will call platinum rings. The next step would then be to apply the Diamond Lemma to the platinum ring instead of the original rings. Such results would have many applications in group theory, noncommutative projective geometry, nonassociative algebras and no doubt other areas as well.
Max ERC Funding
1 406 551 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31
Project acronym COMPAG
Project Comparative Pathways to Agriculture: the archaeobotany of parallel and divergent plant domestications across world regions
Researcher (PI) Dorian Fuller
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary The ComPAg research program will produce the first global comparative synthesis of the convergent evolution of domesticated plants and early agricultural systems based primarily on empirical archaeobotanical data. We will produce ground-breaking data on the earliest crop packages across large parts of Eurasia and Africa, comparisons of the nature of early cultivation inferred from associated weed floras, quantified time series data on evolution of domestication traits for over 30 crops, including both primary and secondary domestications. This program will pursue primary archaeobotanical research in East and Southeast Asia, India, and parts of Africa, with synthesis of existing evidence from Southwest Asia and Europe. We aim to achieve a new framework for explaining the multiple routes from foraging to agriculture on a global scale. The origins of agriculture is widely regarded as the most significant ecological and economic change in the history of human populations, constituting the basis of a fundamental demographic transition towards higher and denser human populations. Plant cultivation is common to all instances of food production that supported sedentism, and thus the origins of crop agriculture is a core issue of socioeconomic evolution in long-term human history. This program will pursue cutting edge research to produce a new critical understanding of early agricultural transformations.
Summary
The ComPAg research program will produce the first global comparative synthesis of the convergent evolution of domesticated plants and early agricultural systems based primarily on empirical archaeobotanical data. We will produce ground-breaking data on the earliest crop packages across large parts of Eurasia and Africa, comparisons of the nature of early cultivation inferred from associated weed floras, quantified time series data on evolution of domestication traits for over 30 crops, including both primary and secondary domestications. This program will pursue primary archaeobotanical research in East and Southeast Asia, India, and parts of Africa, with synthesis of existing evidence from Southwest Asia and Europe. We aim to achieve a new framework for explaining the multiple routes from foraging to agriculture on a global scale. The origins of agriculture is widely regarded as the most significant ecological and economic change in the history of human populations, constituting the basis of a fundamental demographic transition towards higher and denser human populations. Plant cultivation is common to all instances of food production that supported sedentism, and thus the origins of crop agriculture is a core issue of socioeconomic evolution in long-term human history. This program will pursue cutting edge research to produce a new critical understanding of early agricultural transformations.
Max ERC Funding
2 041 992 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31
Project acronym COOPERATION
Project Putting Strong Reciprocity into Context: The Role of Incentives, Social Norms, and Culture for Voluntary Cooperation
Researcher (PI) Simon Gaechter
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary Many important social problems—from the workplace to climate change—require the cooperation of individuals in situations in which collective welfare is jeopardized by self-interest and contractual solutions that align collective and individual interest are not feasible. While this suggests a bleak outcome if people are selfish, recent research in the behavioural sciences suggests that rather than being selfish, many people are non-strategic ‘strong reciprocators’ who cooperate if others cooperate and who punish unfair behaviour even if such cooperation or punishment is individually costly. The fundamental importance of strong reciprocity is that is helps achieving cooperation in situations in which self-interest predicts its breakdown.
The major ambition and innovation of this research programme is to “put strong reciprocity into context” by investigating how incentives, social and cultural context, and gender and personality differences, shape strong reciprocity and, as a consequence, cooperation.
I propose four linked work packages, which all address key open questions of interest to economists and other behavioural scientists. First, I investigate how incentives influence strong reciprocity: Under which conditions do incentives undermine or enhance strong reciprocity and thereby cooperation? Second, I investigate how strong reciprocity relates to social norms of cooperation and is shaped by social context. Third, I use cross-cultural experiments to study the role of cultural influences on strong reciprocity and how culture interacts with incentive structures: when does culture matter for cooperation? Finally, I study personality and gender differences in strong reciprocity.
All projects use economic experiments and insights from across the behavioural sciences. The overarching objective is to develop a ‘behavioural economics of cooperation’, that is, the basic science of relevant behavioural principles that are needed to achieve sustainable cooperation.
Summary
Many important social problems—from the workplace to climate change—require the cooperation of individuals in situations in which collective welfare is jeopardized by self-interest and contractual solutions that align collective and individual interest are not feasible. While this suggests a bleak outcome if people are selfish, recent research in the behavioural sciences suggests that rather than being selfish, many people are non-strategic ‘strong reciprocators’ who cooperate if others cooperate and who punish unfair behaviour even if such cooperation or punishment is individually costly. The fundamental importance of strong reciprocity is that is helps achieving cooperation in situations in which self-interest predicts its breakdown.
The major ambition and innovation of this research programme is to “put strong reciprocity into context” by investigating how incentives, social and cultural context, and gender and personality differences, shape strong reciprocity and, as a consequence, cooperation.
I propose four linked work packages, which all address key open questions of interest to economists and other behavioural scientists. First, I investigate how incentives influence strong reciprocity: Under which conditions do incentives undermine or enhance strong reciprocity and thereby cooperation? Second, I investigate how strong reciprocity relates to social norms of cooperation and is shaped by social context. Third, I use cross-cultural experiments to study the role of cultural influences on strong reciprocity and how culture interacts with incentive structures: when does culture matter for cooperation? Finally, I study personality and gender differences in strong reciprocity.
All projects use economic experiments and insights from across the behavioural sciences. The overarching objective is to develop a ‘behavioural economics of cooperation’, that is, the basic science of relevant behavioural principles that are needed to achieve sustainable cooperation.
Max ERC Funding
2 072 844 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-05-01, End date: 2017-04-30
Project acronym DMEA
Project The Dynamics of Migration and Economic Adjustment
Researcher (PI) Christian Dustmann
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary The research proposed here is concerned with the dynamics of immigrant impacts and the process of economic adaptation in receiving societies. The immigration process is inherently dynamic: many new immigrants return home within a short time; and those that remain undergo a long term series of investments and behavioural changes that gradually alter the way that they interact with the economy of the receiving country. Moreover, in the longer run the presence of immigrants affects the choices of firms over new technology investments, and the choices of native workers over schooling and occupations. Thus simple static frameworks provide an incomplete and even potentially misleading perspective for understanding modern immigration patterns. The point of departure for this proposed research is the recognition that we need to reformulate the analysis of immigrant impacts in a fully dynamic framework, acknowledging the inter-temporal choices of immigrants, firms, and native workers and the ways that these three groups of agents interact over a longer horizon. Our approach involves treating immigration as a dynamic shock, where the dynamics relates to the different agents involved: immigrants, who change their position in the native skill distribution over time as a result of their life-cycle decisions; firms, who react by adjusting their technologies, product mix, and their involvement with institutions and regulatory environment; and native workers, who adjust by changing their career plans. Our work will combine highly innovative theoretical perspectives with state-of-the-art empirical analyses exploiting unique policy experiments and exceptional data sources, merging longitudinal administrative population data with data from firm and individual surveys. This agenda will enable us to construct a comprehensive picture of the adjustment process in response to immigration and open new horizons for future research on the impact of immigration in a dynamic framework.
Summary
The research proposed here is concerned with the dynamics of immigrant impacts and the process of economic adaptation in receiving societies. The immigration process is inherently dynamic: many new immigrants return home within a short time; and those that remain undergo a long term series of investments and behavioural changes that gradually alter the way that they interact with the economy of the receiving country. Moreover, in the longer run the presence of immigrants affects the choices of firms over new technology investments, and the choices of native workers over schooling and occupations. Thus simple static frameworks provide an incomplete and even potentially misleading perspective for understanding modern immigration patterns. The point of departure for this proposed research is the recognition that we need to reformulate the analysis of immigrant impacts in a fully dynamic framework, acknowledging the inter-temporal choices of immigrants, firms, and native workers and the ways that these three groups of agents interact over a longer horizon. Our approach involves treating immigration as a dynamic shock, where the dynamics relates to the different agents involved: immigrants, who change their position in the native skill distribution over time as a result of their life-cycle decisions; firms, who react by adjusting their technologies, product mix, and their involvement with institutions and regulatory environment; and native workers, who adjust by changing their career plans. Our work will combine highly innovative theoretical perspectives with state-of-the-art empirical analyses exploiting unique policy experiments and exceptional data sources, merging longitudinal administrative population data with data from firm and individual surveys. This agenda will enable us to construct a comprehensive picture of the adjustment process in response to immigration and open new horizons for future research on the impact of immigration in a dynamic framework.
Max ERC Funding
1 129 428 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31
Project acronym ECONOMICHISTORY
Project Contracts, Institutions, and Markets in Historical Perspective
Researcher (PI) Maristella Botticini
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA COMMERCIALE LUIGI BOCCONI
Country Italy
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary A growing number of scholars are studying the interactions between cultural values, social and religious norms, institutions, and economic outcomes. The rise of markets, as well as the development of contracts that enable mutually beneficial transactions among agents, are one of the central themes in the literature on long-term economic growth.
This project contributes to both strands of literature by studying the invention and development of marine insurance contracts in medieval Italy and their subsequent spread all over Europe. It brings the economic approach to previously unexplored historical data housed in archives in Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Palermo, Prato, and Venice.
The interest in the historical origin and development of marine insurance contracts is twofold. First, marine contracts are the “parents” of all the other insurance contracts (e.g., fire, life, health, etc) that were developed in subsequent centuries to cope with risk. Second, their invention, as well as other innovations in business practices in the Middle Ages, contributed to the growth of international trade in subsequent centuries.
The key novelty of the project stems from combining contract theory with information from thousands of insurance contracts between 1300 and 1550 to explain why marine insurance developed in medieval Italy and then Europe, to study the empirical determinants of insurance contracts in medieval Italy, and to analyze how medieval merchants coped with adverse selection and moral hazard problems.
Most scholars agree that marine insurance was unknown to the ancient world. Italian merchants developed the first insurance contracts and other innovations in business practices during and in the aftermath of the Commercial Revolution that swept Europe from roughly 1275 to about 1325. Marine insurance contracts may have developed as a spin-off of earlier contracts which shifted the risk from one party to another (e.g., sea loan, insurance loan). Alternatively, in the early or mid-fourteenth century, sedentary merchants that provided the capital to travelling merchants invented a new type of contract, when they discovered that the existing contract forms had shortcomings in transferring and dividing sea risk.
A sample of the questions that this project will address includes:
- Why did insurance contracts and a marine insurance market first develop in medieval times and not earlier despite merchants had to deal with the risks associated with maritime trade since antiquity?
- What were the empirical determinants of contract form (e.g., insurance premium) in the medieval insurance market?
- How did medieval merchants compute insurance premia without having the formal notion of probability that was developed only in the mid-seventeenth century?
- How did medieval merchants cope with the typical problems that plague insurance markets, i.e., adverse selection and moral hazard?
Summary
A growing number of scholars are studying the interactions between cultural values, social and religious norms, institutions, and economic outcomes. The rise of markets, as well as the development of contracts that enable mutually beneficial transactions among agents, are one of the central themes in the literature on long-term economic growth.
This project contributes to both strands of literature by studying the invention and development of marine insurance contracts in medieval Italy and their subsequent spread all over Europe. It brings the economic approach to previously unexplored historical data housed in archives in Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Palermo, Prato, and Venice.
The interest in the historical origin and development of marine insurance contracts is twofold. First, marine contracts are the “parents” of all the other insurance contracts (e.g., fire, life, health, etc) that were developed in subsequent centuries to cope with risk. Second, their invention, as well as other innovations in business practices in the Middle Ages, contributed to the growth of international trade in subsequent centuries.
The key novelty of the project stems from combining contract theory with information from thousands of insurance contracts between 1300 and 1550 to explain why marine insurance developed in medieval Italy and then Europe, to study the empirical determinants of insurance contracts in medieval Italy, and to analyze how medieval merchants coped with adverse selection and moral hazard problems.
Most scholars agree that marine insurance was unknown to the ancient world. Italian merchants developed the first insurance contracts and other innovations in business practices during and in the aftermath of the Commercial Revolution that swept Europe from roughly 1275 to about 1325. Marine insurance contracts may have developed as a spin-off of earlier contracts which shifted the risk from one party to another (e.g., sea loan, insurance loan). Alternatively, in the early or mid-fourteenth century, sedentary merchants that provided the capital to travelling merchants invented a new type of contract, when they discovered that the existing contract forms had shortcomings in transferring and dividing sea risk.
A sample of the questions that this project will address includes:
- Why did insurance contracts and a marine insurance market first develop in medieval times and not earlier despite merchants had to deal with the risks associated with maritime trade since antiquity?
- What were the empirical determinants of contract form (e.g., insurance premium) in the medieval insurance market?
- How did medieval merchants compute insurance premia without having the formal notion of probability that was developed only in the mid-seventeenth century?
- How did medieval merchants cope with the typical problems that plague insurance markets, i.e., adverse selection and moral hazard?
Max ERC Funding
1 113 900 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-07-01, End date: 2018-06-30
