Project acronym COBHAM
Project The role of consumer behavior and heterogeneity in the integrated assessment of energy and climate policies
Researcher (PI) Massimo Tavoni
Host Institution (HI) POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2013-StG
Summary The objective of this project is to quantify the role of consumers’ behaviour on the design and assessment of policies aimed at enhancing energy efficiency and conservation and at promoting climate change mitigation. The project brings together different disciplines –namely energy policy, environmental and ecological economics, behavioral public finance, experimental economics, and technology policy- in an integrated fashion. COBHAM is designed to go beyond the standard analysis of energy and climate policies in the presence of environmental externalities, by accounting for the heterogeneity in consumers’ preferences, the role of social interactions, and the presence of behavioral tendencies and biases. The project seeks to: i) carry out innovative research in the theoretical understanding of the interplay between behavioral tendencies and environmental externalities; ii) generate new empirical data and research on individual preferences by means of original surveys and controlled experiments; iii) enhance integrated assessment models (IAMs) of economy, energy and climate with an advanced representation of consumers’ behavior. In doing so, the project will be able to provide a richer characterization of energy demand and of greenhouse gas emission scenarios, to better estimate consumers’ responsiveness to energy and climate policies, and to provide input to the design of new policy instruments aimed at influencing energy and environmental sustainable behavior. COBHAM is of high public policy relevance given Europe’s legislation on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions, and can provide important insights also outside the sphere of energy and climate policymaking.
Summary
The objective of this project is to quantify the role of consumers’ behaviour on the design and assessment of policies aimed at enhancing energy efficiency and conservation and at promoting climate change mitigation. The project brings together different disciplines –namely energy policy, environmental and ecological economics, behavioral public finance, experimental economics, and technology policy- in an integrated fashion. COBHAM is designed to go beyond the standard analysis of energy and climate policies in the presence of environmental externalities, by accounting for the heterogeneity in consumers’ preferences, the role of social interactions, and the presence of behavioral tendencies and biases. The project seeks to: i) carry out innovative research in the theoretical understanding of the interplay between behavioral tendencies and environmental externalities; ii) generate new empirical data and research on individual preferences by means of original surveys and controlled experiments; iii) enhance integrated assessment models (IAMs) of economy, energy and climate with an advanced representation of consumers’ behavior. In doing so, the project will be able to provide a richer characterization of energy demand and of greenhouse gas emission scenarios, to better estimate consumers’ responsiveness to energy and climate policies, and to provide input to the design of new policy instruments aimed at influencing energy and environmental sustainable behavior. COBHAM is of high public policy relevance given Europe’s legislation on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions, and can provide important insights also outside the sphere of energy and climate policymaking.
Max ERC Funding
1 451 840 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-08-01, End date: 2019-07-31
Project acronym CROME
Project Crossed Memories, Politics of Silence: The Colonial-Liberation Wars in Postcolonial Times
Researcher (PI) Miguel Gonçalo CARDINA
Host Institution (HI) CENTRO DE ESTUDOS SOCIAIS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2016-STG
Summary Colonial-Liberation Wars generate plural memories, conflicting evocations and persisting amnesias. The project’s main challenge is to produce innovative knowledge about the memories of the wars fought by the Portuguese state and pro-independence African movements between 1961 and 1974/5. The approach chosen is simultaneously diachronic and comparative, inasmuch as it contrasts changes that took place between the end of the conflicts and nowadays, regarding how wars, colonial pasts and anticolonial legacies have been remembered and silenced in Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Principe. The key hypothesis is that wars - as pivotal moments that ended the cycle of Empire in Portugal and started the cycle of African independences in the former Portuguese colonies - triggered memorialisation and silencing processes which had their own historicity.
CROME is divided into two strands. The first one, named ‘Colonial Wars, Postcolonial States’, looks at the role played by the states under consideration in mobilising, articulating and recognising the past, but also in actively generating selective representations. ‘Memory as a battlefield’ is the second strand, which will highlight distinct uses of the past and dynamics between social memories and individual memories.
The project intends to demonstrate how wars gave rise to multiple memories and conflicting historical judgements, mostly in Portugal, but also to examine how the specific nature of the (post-)colonial histories of each African country has generated different ways to summon war memories and (anti-)colonial legacies. CROME will, thus, put forward a ground-breaking perspective in terms of colonial-liberation war studies, and will be instrumental in dealing with such traumatic experience, for its comparative approach might help overcoming everlasting constraints still at play today, caused by the historical burden European colonialism left behind.
Summary
Colonial-Liberation Wars generate plural memories, conflicting evocations and persisting amnesias. The project’s main challenge is to produce innovative knowledge about the memories of the wars fought by the Portuguese state and pro-independence African movements between 1961 and 1974/5. The approach chosen is simultaneously diachronic and comparative, inasmuch as it contrasts changes that took place between the end of the conflicts and nowadays, regarding how wars, colonial pasts and anticolonial legacies have been remembered and silenced in Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Principe. The key hypothesis is that wars - as pivotal moments that ended the cycle of Empire in Portugal and started the cycle of African independences in the former Portuguese colonies - triggered memorialisation and silencing processes which had their own historicity.
CROME is divided into two strands. The first one, named ‘Colonial Wars, Postcolonial States’, looks at the role played by the states under consideration in mobilising, articulating and recognising the past, but also in actively generating selective representations. ‘Memory as a battlefield’ is the second strand, which will highlight distinct uses of the past and dynamics between social memories and individual memories.
The project intends to demonstrate how wars gave rise to multiple memories and conflicting historical judgements, mostly in Portugal, but also to examine how the specific nature of the (post-)colonial histories of each African country has generated different ways to summon war memories and (anti-)colonial legacies. CROME will, thus, put forward a ground-breaking perspective in terms of colonial-liberation war studies, and will be instrumental in dealing with such traumatic experience, for its comparative approach might help overcoming everlasting constraints still at play today, caused by the historical burden European colonialism left behind.
Max ERC Funding
1 478 249 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-02-01, End date: 2022-01-31
Project acronym EarlyModernCosmology
Project Institutions and Metaphysics of Cosmology in the Epistemic Networks of Seventeenth-Century Europe
Researcher (PI) Pietro Daniel OMODEO
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The focus of this project is the competing confessional discourses on cosmology of the seventeenth century, an epoch in which religious conflicts originated opposing ‘epistemic cultures’, which were embodied in scholarly institutions and networks such as the Protestant web of northern European universities or the global web of Jesuit colleges.
In the Early Modern Period cosmological controversies (over issues such as heliocentrism, plurality of worlds, space, infinity, cometary theory, celestial matter and fluidity) were heated and amplified by increasing political and confessional fragmentation. The Roman prohibition of the Copernican system (1616) and the extraordinary condemnation of Galileo (1633) accelerated the formation of competing cosmological cultures along confessional and political lines of alliance and opposition. This research project addresses the interrelations between [1.] cosmological debates in the northern European Protestant institutional networks of scholars and institutions and [2.] cosmological debates in Jesuit institutional networks aiming at [3.] a comparative assessment of early formations and transformations of epistemic webs. It considers parallelisms and contrasts, negotiations and intersections of seventeenth-century cosmological discourses between scholars, institutions and scientific communities belonging to different epistemic cultures. This endeavor brings into focus the political-confessional dimension of early-modern cosmology and shows how science is embedded in struggles for cultural hegemony, struggles which were at once institutional and ideological. While there is a great deal of in-depth study on the history of science in various early-modern confessional contexts, a comparative study bringing together the history of knowledge institutions and their metaphysical legitimation is still a desideratum.
Summary
The focus of this project is the competing confessional discourses on cosmology of the seventeenth century, an epoch in which religious conflicts originated opposing ‘epistemic cultures’, which were embodied in scholarly institutions and networks such as the Protestant web of northern European universities or the global web of Jesuit colleges.
In the Early Modern Period cosmological controversies (over issues such as heliocentrism, plurality of worlds, space, infinity, cometary theory, celestial matter and fluidity) were heated and amplified by increasing political and confessional fragmentation. The Roman prohibition of the Copernican system (1616) and the extraordinary condemnation of Galileo (1633) accelerated the formation of competing cosmological cultures along confessional and political lines of alliance and opposition. This research project addresses the interrelations between [1.] cosmological debates in the northern European Protestant institutional networks of scholars and institutions and [2.] cosmological debates in Jesuit institutional networks aiming at [3.] a comparative assessment of early formations and transformations of epistemic webs. It considers parallelisms and contrasts, negotiations and intersections of seventeenth-century cosmological discourses between scholars, institutions and scientific communities belonging to different epistemic cultures. This endeavor brings into focus the political-confessional dimension of early-modern cosmology and shows how science is embedded in struggles for cultural hegemony, struggles which were at once institutional and ideological. While there is a great deal of in-depth study on the history of science in various early-modern confessional contexts, a comparative study bringing together the history of knowledge institutions and their metaphysical legitimation is still a desideratum.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 976 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-11-01, End date: 2022-10-31
Project acronym ECSPLAIN
Project Early Cortical Sensory Plasticity and Adaptability in Human Adults
Researcher (PI) Maria Concetta Morrone
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DI PISA
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary Neuronal plasticity is an important mechanism for memory and cognition, and also fundamental to fine-tune perception to the environment. It has long been thought that sensory neural systems are plastic only in very young animals, during the so-called “critical period”. However, recent evidence – including work from our laboratory – suggests that the adult brain may retain far more capacity for plastic change than previously assumed, even for basic visual properties like ocular dominance. This project probes the underlying neural mechanisms of adult human plasticity, and investigates its functional role in important processes such as response optimization, auto-calibration and recovery of function. We propose a range of experiments employing many experimental techniques, organized within four principle research lines. The first (and major) research line studies the effects of brief periods of monocular deprivation on functional cortical reorganization of adults, measured by psychophysics (binocular rivalry), ERP, functional imaging and MR spectroscopy. We will also investigate the clinical implications of monocular patching of children with amblyopia. Another research line looks at the effects of longer-term deprivation, such as those induced by hereditary cone dystrophy. Another examines the interplay between plasticity and visual adaptation in early visual cortex, with techniques aimed to modulate retinotopic organization of primary visual cortex. Finally we will use fMRI to study development and plasticity in newborns, providing benchmark data to assess residual plasticity of older humans. Pilot studies have been conducted on most of the proposed lines of research (including fMRI recording from alert newborns), attesting to their feasibility and the likelihood of them being completed within the timeframe of this grant. The PI has considerable experience in all these research areas.
Summary
Neuronal plasticity is an important mechanism for memory and cognition, and also fundamental to fine-tune perception to the environment. It has long been thought that sensory neural systems are plastic only in very young animals, during the so-called “critical period”. However, recent evidence – including work from our laboratory – suggests that the adult brain may retain far more capacity for plastic change than previously assumed, even for basic visual properties like ocular dominance. This project probes the underlying neural mechanisms of adult human plasticity, and investigates its functional role in important processes such as response optimization, auto-calibration and recovery of function. We propose a range of experiments employing many experimental techniques, organized within four principle research lines. The first (and major) research line studies the effects of brief periods of monocular deprivation on functional cortical reorganization of adults, measured by psychophysics (binocular rivalry), ERP, functional imaging and MR spectroscopy. We will also investigate the clinical implications of monocular patching of children with amblyopia. Another research line looks at the effects of longer-term deprivation, such as those induced by hereditary cone dystrophy. Another examines the interplay between plasticity and visual adaptation in early visual cortex, with techniques aimed to modulate retinotopic organization of primary visual cortex. Finally we will use fMRI to study development and plasticity in newborns, providing benchmark data to assess residual plasticity of older humans. Pilot studies have been conducted on most of the proposed lines of research (including fMRI recording from alert newborns), attesting to their feasibility and the likelihood of them being completed within the timeframe of this grant. The PI has considerable experience in all these research areas.
Max ERC Funding
2 493 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-05-01, End date: 2019-04-30
Project acronym EU-FER
Project Economic Uncertainty and Fertility in Europe
Researcher (PI) Daniele VIGNOLI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2016-COG
Summary EU-FER is a project about Economic Uncertainty and FERtility in EUrope. Economic uncertainty may be interpreted as an individual risk factor, mainly related to the labour market (e.g. unemployment, short-term contract jobs, underemployment, or a combination of these), but it may also be conceptualized as a macro-level phenomenon, reflecting the general uncertainty felt by people in times of economic turbulence. The recent Great Recession, spanning 2007 to 2009 and featuring downturns in both financial and labour market fortunes, has fuelled interest in understanding whether economic uncertainty, which does not appear to be a transient phenomenon, affects fertility.
The economic uncertainty/fertility nexus is far from being clearly understood: theoretical premises are weak and empirical findings send conflicting messages. The goal of this project is to generate new knowledge on if, how, and under what circumstances economic uncertainty matters for fertility in contemporary Europe, adopting a cross-country comparative approach. The use of new data, methodologies, and tools may advance our knowledge on this topic. EU-FER is based on three pillars: a meta-analysis of previous research, a cross-country laboratory experimentation design, and micro-level longitudinal analyses.
EU-FER ensures a strong interdisciplinary perspective, with the following overall goals:
• to advance the understanding of the causal impact of economic uncertainty on fertility addressing this issue in a comprehensive way and from different perspectives, using various measures of uncertainty, and testing aspects that remain unclear from the current body of research;
• to enhance the boundaries of demographic research by illustrating the benefits of a laboratory experimentation design;
• to communicate findings and stimulate the academic and policy debate on how economic uncertainty matters for fertility.
Summary
EU-FER is a project about Economic Uncertainty and FERtility in EUrope. Economic uncertainty may be interpreted as an individual risk factor, mainly related to the labour market (e.g. unemployment, short-term contract jobs, underemployment, or a combination of these), but it may also be conceptualized as a macro-level phenomenon, reflecting the general uncertainty felt by people in times of economic turbulence. The recent Great Recession, spanning 2007 to 2009 and featuring downturns in both financial and labour market fortunes, has fuelled interest in understanding whether economic uncertainty, which does not appear to be a transient phenomenon, affects fertility.
The economic uncertainty/fertility nexus is far from being clearly understood: theoretical premises are weak and empirical findings send conflicting messages. The goal of this project is to generate new knowledge on if, how, and under what circumstances economic uncertainty matters for fertility in contemporary Europe, adopting a cross-country comparative approach. The use of new data, methodologies, and tools may advance our knowledge on this topic. EU-FER is based on three pillars: a meta-analysis of previous research, a cross-country laboratory experimentation design, and micro-level longitudinal analyses.
EU-FER ensures a strong interdisciplinary perspective, with the following overall goals:
• to advance the understanding of the causal impact of economic uncertainty on fertility addressing this issue in a comprehensive way and from different perspectives, using various measures of uncertainty, and testing aspects that remain unclear from the current body of research;
• to enhance the boundaries of demographic research by illustrating the benefits of a laboratory experimentation design;
• to communicate findings and stimulate the academic and policy debate on how economic uncertainty matters for fertility.
Max ERC Funding
1 689 272 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym EUROPOPULISM
Project European Integration, Populism and European Cities
Researcher (PI) Guido Enrico TABELLINI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA COMMERCIALE LUIGI BOCCONI
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary Why is it so difficult to achieve further European political integration? This question motivates the first part of the project. The standard approach in economics presumes that integration of countries reflects a tradeoff between economic benefits and the cost of cultural heterogeneity. To assess this tradeoff, we exploit survey data to quantify cultural heterogeneity within and between EU countries, comparing it to the US. We also investigate time variation, to assess whether economic integration led to cultural convergence. Finally, exploiting regional variation, we seek to identify a cultural core and compare it to the economic core of the EU. We conjecture the following conclusion: although European economic integration has not led to cultural convergence, the primary obstacle to integration is not cultural heterogeneity per se, but the presence of other barriers, such as national identities or national institutions, which amplify its effects.
The second part of the project studies the causes and implications of two related phenomena: the diffusion of nationalism and of political populism, with behavioral voters. We study nationalism as endogenous identification with one’s nation, and analyze how it interacts with political institutions and political processes in a setting of international policy coordination. We study populism as due to the reaction of disappointed voters who behave according to Prospect theory. Our main goal is to explain these behavioral phenomena, and to derive predictions about the effect of institutional reforms.
The third part of the project examines Europe in the very long run. It studies the formation of clusters of creative élites within Europe, in a historical perspective. The main goal is to explain how local self-government institutions and the migration of upper tail human capital between different European cities contributed to the formation of clusters of innovation and creativity in the XI-XIX centuries.
Summary
Why is it so difficult to achieve further European political integration? This question motivates the first part of the project. The standard approach in economics presumes that integration of countries reflects a tradeoff between economic benefits and the cost of cultural heterogeneity. To assess this tradeoff, we exploit survey data to quantify cultural heterogeneity within and between EU countries, comparing it to the US. We also investigate time variation, to assess whether economic integration led to cultural convergence. Finally, exploiting regional variation, we seek to identify a cultural core and compare it to the economic core of the EU. We conjecture the following conclusion: although European economic integration has not led to cultural convergence, the primary obstacle to integration is not cultural heterogeneity per se, but the presence of other barriers, such as national identities or national institutions, which amplify its effects.
The second part of the project studies the causes and implications of two related phenomena: the diffusion of nationalism and of political populism, with behavioral voters. We study nationalism as endogenous identification with one’s nation, and analyze how it interacts with political institutions and political processes in a setting of international policy coordination. We study populism as due to the reaction of disappointed voters who behave according to Prospect theory. Our main goal is to explain these behavioral phenomena, and to derive predictions about the effect of institutional reforms.
The third part of the project examines Europe in the very long run. It studies the formation of clusters of creative élites within Europe, in a historical perspective. The main goal is to explain how local self-government institutions and the migration of upper tail human capital between different European cities contributed to the formation of clusters of innovation and creativity in the XI-XIX centuries.
Max ERC Funding
1 276 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym GlobalCitizenshipLaw
Project Global Citizenship Law: International Migration and Constitutional Identity
Researcher (PI) Liav ORGAD
Host Institution (HI) EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2016-STG
Summary "Managing global migration is one of the most pressing issues of our time, particularly in Europe. With more than 230 million international immigrants, the manner in which new citizens are/should be ""created"" has become a controversial issue, morally and politically. Traditionally, international law has not regulated nationality law; naturalization requirements remain the last stronghold of national sovereignty. This project advances the establishment of a new subfield in public international law—International Citizenship Law (ICIL)—which would regulate nationality law. It asks a critical and timely question: what are/should be the international legal limitations/privileges imposed on/granted to states in setting naturalization requirements? In order to address this question, the project has five scientific objectives: [1] to investigate the history of the law of naturalization in international law and what it can teach us about 21th-century challenges; [2] to identify the most recent legal developments in the field of naturalization law and establish the most up-to-date international legal standards of naturalization law; [3] to set out the theoretical foundations and the justifications for the establishment of ICIL; [4] to analyze the normative and structural implications derived from an-ICIL approach for future citizenship policy development, as well as to identify the legal reforms that should be taken to promote an-ICIL approach; and [5] to explore the interrelationship between ICIL, immigration policy, and constitutional identity. In essence, the project seeks to formulate international legal standards by which states can admit immigrants without fundamentally changing their cultural heritage and slipping into extreme nationalism. The outcome can serve as a basis for a future reform in international law, EU law, and national legal systems. As the immigration debate reaches a decisive moment, this project has both theoretical significance and policy implications"
Summary
"Managing global migration is one of the most pressing issues of our time, particularly in Europe. With more than 230 million international immigrants, the manner in which new citizens are/should be ""created"" has become a controversial issue, morally and politically. Traditionally, international law has not regulated nationality law; naturalization requirements remain the last stronghold of national sovereignty. This project advances the establishment of a new subfield in public international law—International Citizenship Law (ICIL)—which would regulate nationality law. It asks a critical and timely question: what are/should be the international legal limitations/privileges imposed on/granted to states in setting naturalization requirements? In order to address this question, the project has five scientific objectives: [1] to investigate the history of the law of naturalization in international law and what it can teach us about 21th-century challenges; [2] to identify the most recent legal developments in the field of naturalization law and establish the most up-to-date international legal standards of naturalization law; [3] to set out the theoretical foundations and the justifications for the establishment of ICIL; [4] to analyze the normative and structural implications derived from an-ICIL approach for future citizenship policy development, as well as to identify the legal reforms that should be taken to promote an-ICIL approach; and [5] to explore the interrelationship between ICIL, immigration policy, and constitutional identity. In essence, the project seeks to formulate international legal standards by which states can admit immigrants without fundamentally changing their cultural heritage and slipping into extreme nationalism. The outcome can serve as a basis for a future reform in international law, EU law, and national legal systems. As the immigration debate reaches a decisive moment, this project has both theoretical significance and policy implications"
Max ERC Funding
1 499 588 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-03-01, End date: 2022-02-28
Project acronym INDIRECT
Project Intergenerational Cumulative Disadvantage and Resource Compensation
Researcher (PI) Jani Petteri Erola
Host Institution (HI) TURUN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2013-CoG
Summary "The previous literature has not been able to successfully explain why the loss of the certain family resources does not show as a weaker attainment. Neither the country differences in socioeconomic inheritance seem to reflect the institutional differences between them. We argue that these problems have followed from ignoring resource compensation. The lost capital (economic, human/cultural or social) may be replaced with the other types or with the resources of someone else (the new or extended family members or neighbors). European and other developed societies can be distinguished by their abilities to influence the compensation of the loss of the parental resources rather than by their direct impact on inheritance.
We study compensation in three analytic contexts:
1) Life-course changes followed by the loss of parental resources. The specific events to be considered are parental bereavement, separation, unemployment and geographical mobility.
2) Period changes in society reducing resources in many families approximately at the same time. The examples to be analyzed are economic recession, the inflation of educational credentials due to increasing overall level of education and changing family structures and family formation processes.
3) Structural disadvantage associated with lower level of parental resources. The forms of inequality to be analyzed include the number of siblings sharing the parental resources and childhood neighborhood and the compensation of low resources with the resources of the parents of the spouse.
We use high level Finnish register panel data to analyze the loss compensation after specific life course events. The results are compared to those acquired from German SOEP data and US-based PSID data. Multiple country comparisons are conducted using ESS. The project combines three novel analytic approaches: sibling correlation methods, conditional multinomial (event history) models and sequence analysis."
Summary
"The previous literature has not been able to successfully explain why the loss of the certain family resources does not show as a weaker attainment. Neither the country differences in socioeconomic inheritance seem to reflect the institutional differences between them. We argue that these problems have followed from ignoring resource compensation. The lost capital (economic, human/cultural or social) may be replaced with the other types or with the resources of someone else (the new or extended family members or neighbors). European and other developed societies can be distinguished by their abilities to influence the compensation of the loss of the parental resources rather than by their direct impact on inheritance.
We study compensation in three analytic contexts:
1) Life-course changes followed by the loss of parental resources. The specific events to be considered are parental bereavement, separation, unemployment and geographical mobility.
2) Period changes in society reducing resources in many families approximately at the same time. The examples to be analyzed are economic recession, the inflation of educational credentials due to increasing overall level of education and changing family structures and family formation processes.
3) Structural disadvantage associated with lower level of parental resources. The forms of inequality to be analyzed include the number of siblings sharing the parental resources and childhood neighborhood and the compensation of low resources with the resources of the parents of the spouse.
We use high level Finnish register panel data to analyze the loss compensation after specific life course events. The results are compared to those acquired from German SOEP data and US-based PSID data. Multiple country comparisons are conducted using ESS. The project combines three novel analytic approaches: sibling correlation methods, conditional multinomial (event history) models and sequence analysis."
Max ERC Funding
1 880 328 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-04-01, End date: 2019-03-31
Project acronym InfoAsymMarkets
Project Decentralized Markets with Informational Asymmetries
Researcher (PI) Donato (Dino) Gerardi
Host Institution (HI) COLLEGIO CARLO ALBERTO - CENTRO DI RICERCA E ALTA FORMAZIONE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH1, ERC-2013-CoG
Summary The goal of this proposal is to advance the theory of decentralized trade with informational asymmetries and limited commitment.
In most trading situations, some of the parties possess superior information about critical aspects of the environment. For example, in financial markets, professional investors are better informed about the quality of the assets that they sell to individuals. Similarly, consumers typically have private information about their willingness to pay for goods and services. It is well understood that informational asymmetries are responsible for one of the most serious forms of market inefficiency. Because of its strong assumptions in term of commitment, the standard theory of mechanism design is unsuitable for the study of many actual trading institutions. On the other hand, the focus of most of the existing literature on trading with limited commitment is the case in which the parties can trade at most once. While satisfactory in situations like the sale of a house, this assumption leaves out many important economic environments where the parties trade repeatedly over time. However, repeated transactions are natural both when the objects of trade are non-durable (e.g., services such as phone or internet plans) and when they are durable but divisible (e.g., financial assets). A crucial difference between these cases and those analyzed in the literature is the fact that the information revealed in early transactions may affect the outcome of future negotiations.
We plan to provide a systematic game-theoretic analysis of decentralized markets with repeated trading and informational asymmetries. Our investigation will shed light on the properties of various commonly used trading mechanisms and will inform us about possible remedies to make them more efficient. This will contribute substantially to the design of adequate institutions and to the regulation of markets.
Summary
The goal of this proposal is to advance the theory of decentralized trade with informational asymmetries and limited commitment.
In most trading situations, some of the parties possess superior information about critical aspects of the environment. For example, in financial markets, professional investors are better informed about the quality of the assets that they sell to individuals. Similarly, consumers typically have private information about their willingness to pay for goods and services. It is well understood that informational asymmetries are responsible for one of the most serious forms of market inefficiency. Because of its strong assumptions in term of commitment, the standard theory of mechanism design is unsuitable for the study of many actual trading institutions. On the other hand, the focus of most of the existing literature on trading with limited commitment is the case in which the parties can trade at most once. While satisfactory in situations like the sale of a house, this assumption leaves out many important economic environments where the parties trade repeatedly over time. However, repeated transactions are natural both when the objects of trade are non-durable (e.g., services such as phone or internet plans) and when they are durable but divisible (e.g., financial assets). A crucial difference between these cases and those analyzed in the literature is the fact that the information revealed in early transactions may affect the outcome of future negotiations.
We plan to provide a systematic game-theoretic analysis of decentralized markets with repeated trading and informational asymmetries. Our investigation will shed light on the properties of various commonly used trading mechanisms and will inform us about possible remedies to make them more efficient. This will contribute substantially to the design of adequate institutions and to the regulation of markets.
Max ERC Funding
827 410 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2018-02-28
Project acronym InStance
Project Intentional stance for social attunement
Researcher (PI) Agnieszka Anna Wykowska
Host Institution (HI) FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2016-STG
Summary In daily social interactions, we constantly attribute mental states, such as beliefs or intentions, to other humans – to understand and predict their behaviour. Today we also routinely interact with artificial agents: from Apple’s Siri to GPS navigation systems. In the near future, we will casually interact with robots. However, since we consider artificial agents to have no mental states, we tend to not attune socially with them in the sense of activating our mechanisms of social cognition. This is because it seems pointless to socially attune to something that does not carry social meaning (mental content) under the surface of an observed behaviour. INSTANCE will break new ground in social cognition research by identifying factors that influence attribution of mental states to others and social attunement with humans or artificial agents. The objectives of INSTANCE are to (1) determine parameters of others’ behaviour that make us attribute mental states to them, (2) explore parameters relevant for social attunement, (3) elucidate further factors – culture and experience – that influence attribution of mental states to agents and, thereby social attunement. INSTANCE’s objectives are highly relevant not only for fundamental research in social cognition, but also for the applied field of social robotics, where robots are expected to become humans’ social companions. Indeed, if we do not attune socially to artificial agents viewed as mindless machines, then robots may end up not working well enough in contexts where interaction is paramount. INSTANCE’s unique approach combining cognitive neuroscience methods with real-time human-robot interaction will address the challenge of social attunement between humans and artificial agents. Subtle features of robot behaviour (e.g., timing or pattern of eye movements) will be manipulated. The impact of such features on social attunement (e.g., joint attention) will be examined with behavioural, neural and physiological measures.
Summary
In daily social interactions, we constantly attribute mental states, such as beliefs or intentions, to other humans – to understand and predict their behaviour. Today we also routinely interact with artificial agents: from Apple’s Siri to GPS navigation systems. In the near future, we will casually interact with robots. However, since we consider artificial agents to have no mental states, we tend to not attune socially with them in the sense of activating our mechanisms of social cognition. This is because it seems pointless to socially attune to something that does not carry social meaning (mental content) under the surface of an observed behaviour. INSTANCE will break new ground in social cognition research by identifying factors that influence attribution of mental states to others and social attunement with humans or artificial agents. The objectives of INSTANCE are to (1) determine parameters of others’ behaviour that make us attribute mental states to them, (2) explore parameters relevant for social attunement, (3) elucidate further factors – culture and experience – that influence attribution of mental states to agents and, thereby social attunement. INSTANCE’s objectives are highly relevant not only for fundamental research in social cognition, but also for the applied field of social robotics, where robots are expected to become humans’ social companions. Indeed, if we do not attune socially to artificial agents viewed as mindless machines, then robots may end up not working well enough in contexts where interaction is paramount. INSTANCE’s unique approach combining cognitive neuroscience methods with real-time human-robot interaction will address the challenge of social attunement between humans and artificial agents. Subtle features of robot behaviour (e.g., timing or pattern of eye movements) will be manipulated. The impact of such features on social attunement (e.g., joint attention) will be examined with behavioural, neural and physiological measures.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 937 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-05-01, End date: 2022-04-30
