ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Contemporary global developments in work and employment are transforming labour and reshaping relations between workers, creating new webs of interconnection across the world. This research programme aims to radically revise the foundational concept of the division of labour , by situating traditional understandings of the technical allocation of tasks within an expanded theoretical framework. Two additional dimensions of differentiation and interdependency of work activities are proposed, namely across socio-economic modes (market, non-market, etc.) and across the economic processes of production, distribution, exchange, and preparation for consumption. The approach will be developed by opening up a new research terrain of consumption work : all work undertaken by consumers necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods. The work of consumers is shaped by its interdependency with that of providers, and vice versa, so providing a key to route to understanding the overall dynamics and variety of changing worlds of work. Three contrasting empirical probes are chosen for the questions each raises about consumption work and its increasing socio-economic importance: domestic broadband installation, food preparation and household recycling of waste. Analysis will centre for each on the varying nature of the interface and interaction between consumption work and systems of provision in five comparator countries (UK, Sweden, France, Taiwan, Korea) selected for their contrasting socio-economies. The research programme is global, comparative and historical, making a significant scientific and policy contribution, by advancing comprehension of key processes of ongoing socio-economic change, and establishing consumption work as a new field of enquiry.

810 437 €

Start date: 2010-04-01, End date: 2013-12-31

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.

1 129 428 €

Start date: 2013-06-01, End date: 2018-05-31

Apathy is a prominent and severely debilitating aspect of several psychiatric disorders, most notably schizophrenia. Little is known regarding the neuroscientific basis of apathy, however. Clinically, it has been suggested that two forms of apathy can be distinguished: cognitive apathy (CA) which concerns reduced initiative to start daily activities and social-emotional apathy (SEA) which concerns reduced interest in otherwise gratifying activities. I hypothesize that CA is primarily a dysfunction of cognitive control and self-initiated action, whereas SEA is primarily a failure to signal the salience of positive events. The present project, for the first time, tests the hypothesis that two neuroanatomically distinct routes underlie these two forms of apathy: a dorsal frontostriatal circuit including also the right parietal cortex for CA (associated with abnormalities of glutamate neurotransmission), and a more ventral frontostriatal circuit including the reward system for SEA (involving abnormal dopamine transmission). The objective of this project is threefold. First, to investigate the two neural circuits in relation to the two forms of apathy using functional MRI and positron emission tomography. Second, I will test the hypothesis that CA is associated with poorer long-term functioning using longitudinal data. Third, we will conduct a controlled treatment study of a novel intervention to improve CA: transcranial magnetic stimulation over the right prefrontal cortex to target the relevant network. Thus, the present proposal aims to elucidate fundamental cognitive and emotional processes underlying apathy by unravelling the neural basis of two pathways that may lead to apathy. Last but not least, the treatment study may contribute to novel strategies that will ultimately improve patients’ lives. The results will also have implications for understanding apathy in patients with depression, brain damage and neurodegenerative diseases.

1 499 780 €

Start date: 2013-04-01, End date: 2018-03-31

There are three components to this project: Theory; Empirical Testing; and Dissemination. All components are linked to the current policy question of how taxes influence debt and systemic risk, and all use novel dynamic structural models. I am unique in explicitly linking such models to empirical testing. Theory: “Learning, Capital Structure and Systemic Risk.” Standard dynamic structural models of financing assume firms know the stochastic process governing cash flow. I will first consider a partial equilibrium model. Here firms are exposed to rare event risk, with the true probability being unknown. Firms learn and update beliefs regarding risk. Relative to standard models, firms are debt conservative and there is leverage persistence. In many cases, firms increase leverage only if they have avoided a negative shock long enough. In order to analyze asset pricing implications, I plan to embed such firms in a general equilibrium setting with a common catastrophic risk having unknown probability. Firms rationally respond to “Great Moderations” by increasing leverage. Recessions are more severe after long tranquil periods due to high debt overhang. A third paper, Re-Examining the Link Between Leverage and Systematic Risk, considers cross sectional asset pricing implications of credit shocks. The standard levered beta formula is erroneous, and the pre-tax cost of capital increases with debt. Together, the models show privately optimal debt is lower than recognized, and that tax breaks for debt reduce welfare. Empirical Testing: “Natural Experiment Policy Evaluation—A Structural Critique.” A common approach to testing whether taxes influence corporate financing and investment decisions is to compare leverage and investment before/after tax changes. I use a structural model as a laboratory to show that lack of a statistically significant change is not sufficient to reject the null that “taxes matter.” I will first consider an economy where the tax rate is a Markov process. Flotation costs on debt and real irreversibility limit the response of financing and investment to changes in shadow prices. More importantly, responses to tax changes are attenuated whenever they are partially anticipated and not permanent. Standard tests violate rational expectations by implicitly assuming tax changes come as surprises, with each new change being viewed as permanent, until the next surprise. My argument implies that standard tax experiments cannot falsify the null that taxes affect behaviour. Further, one cannot generalize elasticities if the policy transition matrix differs. I will propose an alternative Bayesian approach to hypothesis testing. My argument casts doubt on standard interpretations of historical evidence of tax change effects, suggesting true elasticities may be much higher. I will consider extending this argument to settings with endogenous policy choices. “Dissemination. The objective of this phase is to lower entry barriers by making the methodology accessible via a non-technical primer, and by making the models readily available using a user-friendly online platform.

1 103 996 €

Start date: 2011-10-01, End date: 2015-09-30