Project acronym BEHAVIORAL THEORY
Project Behavioral Theory and Economic Applications
Researcher (PI) Botond Koszegi
Host Institution (HI) KOZEP-EUROPAI EGYETEM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2012-StG_20111124
Summary "This proposal outlines projects to develop robust and portable theories studying the impact of psychological phenomena in economic settings. The proposed work falls in three broad research agendas.
My first main agenda is to formally model and economically apply a simple observation: that when people make decisions, they do not focus equally on all attributes of their available options, and overweight the attributes they focus on. I will build a set of portable models of focusing in attribute-based choice and risky choice based on the idea that a person focuses more on attributes in which her options differ more. I will also use the framework to develop novel, focus-based, theories of intertemporal choice and social preferences, as well as analyze the implications of focusing for product design, principal-agent relationships, and other economic questions.
My second main agenda is to explore some implications for market outcomes, welfare, and policy of the possibility that consumers misperceive certain aspects of products. I will investigate the circumstances that facilitate the profitable deception of consumers; firms' incentives for ""innovating"" deceptive products, including novel financial products aimed at exploiting investors; how firms' ability to distinguish naive and sophisticated consumers affects the consequences of deception; whether learning on the part of consumers will help them to avoid making mistakes; and how regulators and other observers can detect consumer mistakes from market data.
Two further projects apply the model of reference-dependent utility I have developed in earlier work to understand the pricing and advertising behavior of firms. I will also aim to disseminate some of my work, along with other cutting-edge research in psychology and economics, in a Journal of Economic Literature survey on ""Behavioral Contract Theory."""
Summary
"This proposal outlines projects to develop robust and portable theories studying the impact of psychological phenomena in economic settings. The proposed work falls in three broad research agendas.
My first main agenda is to formally model and economically apply a simple observation: that when people make decisions, they do not focus equally on all attributes of their available options, and overweight the attributes they focus on. I will build a set of portable models of focusing in attribute-based choice and risky choice based on the idea that a person focuses more on attributes in which her options differ more. I will also use the framework to develop novel, focus-based, theories of intertemporal choice and social preferences, as well as analyze the implications of focusing for product design, principal-agent relationships, and other economic questions.
My second main agenda is to explore some implications for market outcomes, welfare, and policy of the possibility that consumers misperceive certain aspects of products. I will investigate the circumstances that facilitate the profitable deception of consumers; firms' incentives for ""innovating"" deceptive products, including novel financial products aimed at exploiting investors; how firms' ability to distinguish naive and sophisticated consumers affects the consequences of deception; whether learning on the part of consumers will help them to avoid making mistakes; and how regulators and other observers can detect consumer mistakes from market data.
Two further projects apply the model of reference-dependent utility I have developed in earlier work to understand the pricing and advertising behavior of firms. I will also aim to disseminate some of my work, along with other cutting-edge research in psychology and economics, in a Journal of Economic Literature survey on ""Behavioral Contract Theory."""
Max ERC Funding
1 275 448 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-11-01, End date: 2018-10-31
Project acronym CASTELLANY ACCOUNTS
Project Record-keeping, fiscal reform, and the rise of institutional accountability in late-medieval Savoy: a source-oriented approach
Researcher (PI) Ionut Epurescu-Pascovici
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA DIN BUCURESTI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Summary
The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Max ERC Funding
671 875 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2020-04-30
Project acronym COGTOM
Project Cognitive tomography of mental representations
Researcher (PI) Máté Miklós LENGYEL
Host Institution (HI) KOZEP-EUROPAI EGYETEM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH4, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Internal models are fundamental to our understanding of how the mind constructs percepts, makes decisions, controls movements, and interacts with others. Yet, we lack principled quantitative methods to systematically estimate internal models from observable behaviour, and current approaches for discovering their mental representations remain heuristic and piecemeal. I propose to develop a set of novel 'doubly Bayesian' data analytical methods, using state-of-the-art Bayesian statistical and machine learning techniques to infer humans' internal models formalised as prior distributions in Bayesian models of cognition. This approach, cognitive tomography, takes a series of behavioural observations, each of which in itself may have very limited information content, and accumulates a detailed reconstruction of the internal model based on these observations. I also propose a set of stringent, quantifiable criteria which will be systematically applied at each step of the proposed work to rigorously assess the success of our approach. These methodological advances will allow us to track how the structured, task-general internal models that are so fundamental to humans' superior cognitive abilities, change over time as a result of decay, interference, and learning. We will apply cognitive tomography to a variety of experimental data sets, collected by our collaborators, in paradigms ranging from perceptual learning, through visual and motor structure learning, to social and concept learning. These analyses will allow us to conclusively and quantitatively test our central hypothesis that, rather than simply changing along a single 'memory strength' dimension, internal models typically change via complex and consistent patterns of transformations along multiple dimensions simultaneously. To facilitate the widespread use of our methods, we will release and support off-the-shelf usable implementations of our algorithms together with synthetic and real test data sets.
Summary
Internal models are fundamental to our understanding of how the mind constructs percepts, makes decisions, controls movements, and interacts with others. Yet, we lack principled quantitative methods to systematically estimate internal models from observable behaviour, and current approaches for discovering their mental representations remain heuristic and piecemeal. I propose to develop a set of novel 'doubly Bayesian' data analytical methods, using state-of-the-art Bayesian statistical and machine learning techniques to infer humans' internal models formalised as prior distributions in Bayesian models of cognition. This approach, cognitive tomography, takes a series of behavioural observations, each of which in itself may have very limited information content, and accumulates a detailed reconstruction of the internal model based on these observations. I also propose a set of stringent, quantifiable criteria which will be systematically applied at each step of the proposed work to rigorously assess the success of our approach. These methodological advances will allow us to track how the structured, task-general internal models that are so fundamental to humans' superior cognitive abilities, change over time as a result of decay, interference, and learning. We will apply cognitive tomography to a variety of experimental data sets, collected by our collaborators, in paradigms ranging from perceptual learning, through visual and motor structure learning, to social and concept learning. These analyses will allow us to conclusively and quantitatively test our central hypothesis that, rather than simply changing along a single 'memory strength' dimension, internal models typically change via complex and consistent patterns of transformations along multiple dimensions simultaneously. To facilitate the widespread use of our methods, we will release and support off-the-shelf usable implementations of our algorithms together with synthetic and real test data sets.
Max ERC Funding
1 179 462 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-05-01, End date: 2022-04-30
Project acronym EAST-WEST
Project Vernacular religion on the boundary of Eastern and Western Christianity: continuity, changes and interactions
Researcher (PI) Zsoltné Csalog
Host Institution (HI) MAGYAR TUDOMANYOS AKADEMIA BOLCSESZETTUDOMANYI KUTATOKOZPONT
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary This interdisciplinary research project, relying on mutually complementary historical, anthropological and folklore investigations, will examine continuities and transformations in vernacular religion in the border-zone between Eastern and Western Christianity. The project will have three foci: 1) the role of the religious worldview and norms in past and present communities; 2) change and religious modernisation including the intertwining of the breaking up of the traditional worldview and the appearance of consumer-type attitudes of New Age religiosity; 3) the role of religion in identity formation and the emergence of religious pluralism and co-operation as well as of religious antagonism and conflict between different denominations and nationalities in the region. Members of the project will study these questions in Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Croatian communities of mixed religion. Thematically the research will be organised around exploring symbolic exchange relationships (demonology and witchcraft) sacred communication (shrines, visions, miracles, saints) and healing using both historical sources and contemporary anthropological field work.
The project builds on two previous long-term historical/folkloristic research projects led by PI Éva Pócs and will expand and complement their findings through contemporary anthropological field research and continued archival work. Integrating the results of the current and earlier projects through an innovative electronic document collection, embedded in a geographical information system, will enhance the impact of both sets of materials.
The research will bring us closer to understanding a) inter-religious relationships between Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox believers, b) problems of national identity underlying religious antagonisms, and c) how religious and cultural border zones separate and unite, generate conflict and create mutual understanding, potentially promoting peaceful co-existence.
Summary
This interdisciplinary research project, relying on mutually complementary historical, anthropological and folklore investigations, will examine continuities and transformations in vernacular religion in the border-zone between Eastern and Western Christianity. The project will have three foci: 1) the role of the religious worldview and norms in past and present communities; 2) change and religious modernisation including the intertwining of the breaking up of the traditional worldview and the appearance of consumer-type attitudes of New Age religiosity; 3) the role of religion in identity formation and the emergence of religious pluralism and co-operation as well as of religious antagonism and conflict between different denominations and nationalities in the region. Members of the project will study these questions in Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Croatian communities of mixed religion. Thematically the research will be organised around exploring symbolic exchange relationships (demonology and witchcraft) sacred communication (shrines, visions, miracles, saints) and healing using both historical sources and contemporary anthropological field work.
The project builds on two previous long-term historical/folkloristic research projects led by PI Éva Pócs and will expand and complement their findings through contemporary anthropological field research and continued archival work. Integrating the results of the current and earlier projects through an innovative electronic document collection, embedded in a geographical information system, will enhance the impact of both sets of materials.
The research will bring us closer to understanding a) inter-religious relationships between Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox believers, b) problems of national identity underlying religious antagonisms, and c) how religious and cultural border zones separate and unite, generate conflict and create mutual understanding, potentially promoting peaceful co-existence.
Max ERC Funding
2 079 485 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-09-01, End date: 2018-08-31
Project acronym ELITES08
Project Culturally Composite Elites, Regime Changes and Social Crises in Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Confessional Eastern Europe. (The Carpathian Basin and the Baltics in Comparison - cc. 1900-1950)
Researcher (PI) Gyozo István Karády
Host Institution (HI) KOZEP-EUROPAI EGYETEM
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary The project is multi-disciplinary by character. It focuses upon socio-historical processes of the transformation and 'circulation' of educated and ruling elites in several uniquely composite (both multi-ethnic and multi-confessional) East European regional or national societies, having experienced a number of radical changes of social and political regime as well as state souvereignty in the first half of the 20th century. The historical scope of the study extends from post-feudalism to communism. Societies involved comprise Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania, Voivodina in the Carpathian Basin, Latvia and Estonia in the Baltics. The study draws upon sociological survey methods applied to historically successive elite brackets in form of exhaustive or quasi-exhaustive computerized prosopographical data banks, based on standardized individual biographies of elite members (as permitted by mostly archival sources to be exploited). The main targets would include secondary school graduates, students and graduates of higher education, the main intellectual professions (like doctors and lawyers.), the political power elites as well as 'reputational elites' - those cited in biographical dictionaries. The information fed into our data banks help to clarify thanks to various procedures of multi-variate statistical schemes the contrasting socio-cultural selection and recruitment of elite members, their educational path from primary to higher education, their professional career, intellectual creativity as well as socio-political standing and orientation. This is the first time that large region- or country-wide elite clusters are submitted to systematic socio-historical analyses, covering simultaneously all or most markets of activity and self-assertion of educated clusters in a vast international and comparative perspective related to culturally composite societal formations.
Summary
The project is multi-disciplinary by character. It focuses upon socio-historical processes of the transformation and 'circulation' of educated and ruling elites in several uniquely composite (both multi-ethnic and multi-confessional) East European regional or national societies, having experienced a number of radical changes of social and political regime as well as state souvereignty in the first half of the 20th century. The historical scope of the study extends from post-feudalism to communism. Societies involved comprise Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania, Voivodina in the Carpathian Basin, Latvia and Estonia in the Baltics. The study draws upon sociological survey methods applied to historically successive elite brackets in form of exhaustive or quasi-exhaustive computerized prosopographical data banks, based on standardized individual biographies of elite members (as permitted by mostly archival sources to be exploited). The main targets would include secondary school graduates, students and graduates of higher education, the main intellectual professions (like doctors and lawyers.), the political power elites as well as 'reputational elites' - those cited in biographical dictionaries. The information fed into our data banks help to clarify thanks to various procedures of multi-variate statistical schemes the contrasting socio-cultural selection and recruitment of elite members, their educational path from primary to higher education, their professional career, intellectual creativity as well as socio-political standing and orientation. This is the first time that large region- or country-wide elite clusters are submitted to systematic socio-historical analyses, covering simultaneously all or most markets of activity and self-assertion of educated clusters in a vast international and comparative perspective related to culturally composite societal formations.
Max ERC Funding
771 628 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2012-03-31
Project acronym JAXPERTISE
Project Joint action expertise: Behavioral, cognitive, and neural mechanisms for joint action learning
Researcher (PI) Natalie Sebanz
Host Institution (HI) KOZEP-EUROPAI EGYETEM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH4, ERC-2013-CoG
Summary Human life is full of joint action and our achievements are, to a large extent, joint achievements that require the coordination of two or more individuals. Piano duets and tangos, but also complex technical and medical operations rely on and exist because of coordinated actions. In recent years, research has begun to identify the basic mechanisms of joint action. This work focused on simple tasks that can be performed together without practice. However, a striking aspect of human joint action is the expertise interaction partners acquire together. How people acquire joint expertise is still poorly understood. JAXPERTISE will break new ground by identifying the behavioural, cognitive, and neural mechanisms underlying the learning of joint action. Participating in joint activities is also a motor for individual development. Although this has long been recognized, the mechanisms underlying individual learning through engagement in joint activities remain to be spelled out from a cognitive science perspective. JAXPERTISE will make this crucial step by investigating how joint action affects source memory, semantic memory, and individual skill learning. Carefully designed experiments will optimize the balance between capturing relevant interpersonal phenomena and maximizing experimental control. The proposed studies employ behavioural measures, electroencephalography, and physiological measures. Studies tracing learning processes in novices will be complemented by studies analyzing expert performance in music and dance. New approaches, such as training participants to regulate each other’s brain activity, will lead to methodological breakthroughs. JAXPERTISE will generate basic scientific knowledge that will be relevant to a large number of different disciplines in the social sciences, cognitive sciences, and humanities. The insights gained in this project will have impact on the design of robot helpers and the development of social training interventions.
Summary
Human life is full of joint action and our achievements are, to a large extent, joint achievements that require the coordination of two or more individuals. Piano duets and tangos, but also complex technical and medical operations rely on and exist because of coordinated actions. In recent years, research has begun to identify the basic mechanisms of joint action. This work focused on simple tasks that can be performed together without practice. However, a striking aspect of human joint action is the expertise interaction partners acquire together. How people acquire joint expertise is still poorly understood. JAXPERTISE will break new ground by identifying the behavioural, cognitive, and neural mechanisms underlying the learning of joint action. Participating in joint activities is also a motor for individual development. Although this has long been recognized, the mechanisms underlying individual learning through engagement in joint activities remain to be spelled out from a cognitive science perspective. JAXPERTISE will make this crucial step by investigating how joint action affects source memory, semantic memory, and individual skill learning. Carefully designed experiments will optimize the balance between capturing relevant interpersonal phenomena and maximizing experimental control. The proposed studies employ behavioural measures, electroencephalography, and physiological measures. Studies tracing learning processes in novices will be complemented by studies analyzing expert performance in music and dance. New approaches, such as training participants to regulate each other’s brain activity, will lead to methodological breakthroughs. JAXPERTISE will generate basic scientific knowledge that will be relevant to a large number of different disciplines in the social sciences, cognitive sciences, and humanities. The insights gained in this project will have impact on the design of robot helpers and the development of social training interventions.
Max ERC Funding
1 992 331 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-08-01, End date: 2019-07-31
Project acronym KNOWLEDGEFLOWS
Project Channels and Consequences of Knowledge Flows
from Developed Economies to Central and Eastern Europe
Researcher (PI) Miklós Koren
Host Institution (HI) KOZEP-EUROPAI EGYETEM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2012-StG_20111124
Summary In this project, I study how economic development is shaped by cross-country knowledge flows via trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and other channels. Using novel micro data for several Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, I measure the quantitative importance of three channels: technical knowledge embodied in imported machinery, technical and organizational knowledge embodied in expatriate managers, and disembodied knowledge transfers taking place within multinational firms. I then analyze what impact foreign knowledge has on the firms and the workers of the host economy, and what are its implications for aggregate productivity and income inequality.
The project relies on several existing databases for Hungary and Romania, which will be complemented with newly purchased, collected and compiled data. The outcome of the project will be seven research studies and a collection of firm-level data sets covering CEE countries, including a large cross-country firm survey on the local supplier linkages of multinational companies.
My proposed project improves upon the state of the art in four ways. First, as a comprehensive study using novel micro data, it uncovers new facts about the relative importance of the channels of knowledge flows. Second, it improves the identification of causal effects relative to existing studies by exploiting the detailed micro data. Third, it uses the micro estimates to quantify the aggregate impact of foreign knowledge on the economy. Fourth, it discusses how foreign knowledge affects different firms and workers differently, and, more specifically, how it may contribute to income inequality.
More broadly, the research findings help evaluate the relative efficacy of trade, FDI, and immigration policies in promoting economic growth and can inform theories about the channels and barriers of productivity convergence.
Summary
In this project, I study how economic development is shaped by cross-country knowledge flows via trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and other channels. Using novel micro data for several Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, I measure the quantitative importance of three channels: technical knowledge embodied in imported machinery, technical and organizational knowledge embodied in expatriate managers, and disembodied knowledge transfers taking place within multinational firms. I then analyze what impact foreign knowledge has on the firms and the workers of the host economy, and what are its implications for aggregate productivity and income inequality.
The project relies on several existing databases for Hungary and Romania, which will be complemented with newly purchased, collected and compiled data. The outcome of the project will be seven research studies and a collection of firm-level data sets covering CEE countries, including a large cross-country firm survey on the local supplier linkages of multinational companies.
My proposed project improves upon the state of the art in four ways. First, as a comprehensive study using novel micro data, it uncovers new facts about the relative importance of the channels of knowledge flows. Second, it improves the identification of causal effects relative to existing studies by exploiting the detailed micro data. Third, it uses the micro estimates to quantify the aggregate impact of foreign knowledge on the economy. Fourth, it discusses how foreign knowledge affects different firms and workers differently, and, more specifically, how it may contribute to income inequality.
More broadly, the research findings help evaluate the relative efficacy of trade, FDI, and immigration policies in promoting economic growth and can inform theories about the channels and barriers of productivity convergence.
Max ERC Funding
1 313 776 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-12-01, End date: 2017-11-30
Project acronym LuxFaSS
Project Luxury, fashion and social status in Early Modern South Eastern Europe
Researcher (PI) Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu
Host Institution (HI) FUNDATIA NOUA EUROPA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary It is hard to give a broadly acceptable definition of the concept of luxury, which as a field of study has also been largely neglected by historians and sociologists. From a moral or philosophical point of view, luxury is seen as a form of decadence, although from the economic perspective it is seen as a force that drives development of the consumerist economy. Every society knows it in some form, regardless of the degree of economic development, reserving luxury to elite groups, who show their power and pomp through the display of luxury goods. The history of luxury is therefore, from this perspective, a history of power, reflecting the syncretism of cultural and political thought. Luxury and fashion as components of material culture can also be analysed through the lens of cultural history, since they play an important role in the creation of visual culture. This project proposes to analyse the Christian elites of Ottoman-dominated Europe in the Early Modern period from these perspectives, and to look at how they defined their social status and identity at the intersection of East and West. In such an analysis, the Westernisation of South-Eastern Europe proceeds not just through the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the French Revolution, but also through changes in visual culture brought about by Western influence on notions of luxury and fashion. This approach allows a closer appreciation of the synchronicities and time lags between traditional culture, developments in political thought and social change in the context of the modernisation or “Europeanization” of this part of Europe.
Summary
It is hard to give a broadly acceptable definition of the concept of luxury, which as a field of study has also been largely neglected by historians and sociologists. From a moral or philosophical point of view, luxury is seen as a form of decadence, although from the economic perspective it is seen as a force that drives development of the consumerist economy. Every society knows it in some form, regardless of the degree of economic development, reserving luxury to elite groups, who show their power and pomp through the display of luxury goods. The history of luxury is therefore, from this perspective, a history of power, reflecting the syncretism of cultural and political thought. Luxury and fashion as components of material culture can also be analysed through the lens of cultural history, since they play an important role in the creation of visual culture. This project proposes to analyse the Christian elites of Ottoman-dominated Europe in the Early Modern period from these perspectives, and to look at how they defined their social status and identity at the intersection of East and West. In such an analysis, the Westernisation of South-Eastern Europe proceeds not just through the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the French Revolution, but also through changes in visual culture brought about by Western influence on notions of luxury and fashion. This approach allows a closer appreciation of the synchronicities and time lags between traditional culture, developments in political thought and social change in the context of the modernisation or “Europeanization” of this part of Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 437 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-07-01, End date: 2020-06-30
Project acronym NEPOSTRANS
Project Negotiating post-imperial transitions: from remobilization to nation-state consolidation. A comparative study of local and regional transitions in post-Habsburg East and Central Europe
Researcher (PI) Gábor EGRY
Host Institution (HI) POLITIKATORTENETI INTEZET KOZHASZNU NONPROFIT KFT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2017-COG
Summary The project’s goal is to provide a new, overall narrative of how the Habsburg Empire was replaced by nation states at the end of WWI and reconsider in the light of its results categories and concepts like state and statehood, local, regional and national, transition and transformation. A novel combination of historical comparison and histoire croisée enables the in-depth analyses of a set of local transitions in diverse regions (agrarian, industrial, commercial, urban, rural, multi-and mono-ethnic, borderland and mainland, litoral) and the combination of these results with the existing literature on other localities.
The team addresses four main themes: state, elites, identities and discourses. The focus is always local, the question is how these societies faced the momentous changes and found their place within empire and nation-state(s). It will look at interactions, cultures and especially rupture and continuity of people, norms, practices, institutional cultures in order to discover patterns of transitions and the social factors influencing them. Besides a typology of transitions, it also aims at gaining a new perspective on empire and nation state from this crucial moment of collapse and state-building.
The project is informed by New Imperial history, the idea of phantom boundaries, everyday ethnicity, integrated urban history. At the methodological level it builds on a symmetrical comparison of the selected cases and on an asymmetrical one with the existing literature, while the object of comparison is the transition that we conceptualize as an “intercrossing”. Through analysing this ‘transformation from below’ and connecting for the first time what has remained scattered both in historiography and in the social representations, the project aims to write a new history of modern Eastern Europe as a common legacy for an integrated European history.
Summary
The project’s goal is to provide a new, overall narrative of how the Habsburg Empire was replaced by nation states at the end of WWI and reconsider in the light of its results categories and concepts like state and statehood, local, regional and national, transition and transformation. A novel combination of historical comparison and histoire croisée enables the in-depth analyses of a set of local transitions in diverse regions (agrarian, industrial, commercial, urban, rural, multi-and mono-ethnic, borderland and mainland, litoral) and the combination of these results with the existing literature on other localities.
The team addresses four main themes: state, elites, identities and discourses. The focus is always local, the question is how these societies faced the momentous changes and found their place within empire and nation-state(s). It will look at interactions, cultures and especially rupture and continuity of people, norms, practices, institutional cultures in order to discover patterns of transitions and the social factors influencing them. Besides a typology of transitions, it also aims at gaining a new perspective on empire and nation state from this crucial moment of collapse and state-building.
The project is informed by New Imperial history, the idea of phantom boundaries, everyday ethnicity, integrated urban history. At the methodological level it builds on a symmetrical comparison of the selected cases and on an asymmetrical one with the existing literature, while the object of comparison is the transition that we conceptualize as an “intercrossing”. Through analysing this ‘transformation from below’ and connecting for the first time what has remained scattered both in historiography and in the social representations, the project aims to write a new history of modern Eastern Europe as a common legacy for an integrated European history.
Max ERC Funding
1 963 075 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-03-01, End date: 2023-02-28
Project acronym NETWORKS
Project Economic Allocations in Social Networks: Evidence and Theory
Researcher (PI) Adam Gyorgy Szeidl
Host Institution (HI) KOZEP-EUROPAI EGYETEM
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2011-StG_20101124
Summary Social networks affect many economic interactions, and the social capital embedded in them may help explain broad, macro level outcomes. A recent theory literature develops models of economic allocations in networks. But at this point, we have little evidence on which network mechanisms are most important in practice, how networks interact with markets, and how these micro forces translate into aggregate outcomes.
In this proposal I combine micro level measurement with theory to evaluate various mechanisms through which networks affect economic allocations. I explore this theme in four domains. (1) Borrowing and informal insurance in development. I measure the value of connections for borrowing, and study how transfers propagate through the network using field experiments in Peru. (2) Peer effects and the social multiplier. In field experiments I measure financial and peer-based incentives, and how they reinforce each other. I also measure knowledge diffusion about exporting in corporate networks, and the resulting multiplier effect of reducing trade barriers. (3) Information aggregation. I measure how different pieces of information are filtered and aggregated in the social network. (4) Favouritism. I study the economic causes and consequences of favouring friends in a field experiment. I also measure economic misallocation resulting from politicians favouring connected firms in Hungarian data, and the cost to aggregate productivity.
In all projects, my measurement emphasizes causality through field experiments and a unique firm level dataset with many sources of variation. Estimating models allows me to contrast theories and generalize the empirical findings. The results will help evaluate the importance of social networks for microeconomic and aggregate allocations, yield lessons on how organizations and policies leverage social mechanisms, and may open a new research area on mechanism design with network effects.
Summary
Social networks affect many economic interactions, and the social capital embedded in them may help explain broad, macro level outcomes. A recent theory literature develops models of economic allocations in networks. But at this point, we have little evidence on which network mechanisms are most important in practice, how networks interact with markets, and how these micro forces translate into aggregate outcomes.
In this proposal I combine micro level measurement with theory to evaluate various mechanisms through which networks affect economic allocations. I explore this theme in four domains. (1) Borrowing and informal insurance in development. I measure the value of connections for borrowing, and study how transfers propagate through the network using field experiments in Peru. (2) Peer effects and the social multiplier. In field experiments I measure financial and peer-based incentives, and how they reinforce each other. I also measure knowledge diffusion about exporting in corporate networks, and the resulting multiplier effect of reducing trade barriers. (3) Information aggregation. I measure how different pieces of information are filtered and aggregated in the social network. (4) Favouritism. I study the economic causes and consequences of favouring friends in a field experiment. I also measure economic misallocation resulting from politicians favouring connected firms in Hungarian data, and the cost to aggregate productivity.
In all projects, my measurement emphasizes causality through field experiments and a unique firm level dataset with many sources of variation. Estimating models allows me to contrast theories and generalize the empirical findings. The results will help evaluate the importance of social networks for microeconomic and aggregate allocations, yield lessons on how organizations and policies leverage social mechanisms, and may open a new research area on mechanism design with network effects.
Max ERC Funding
1 165 350 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-11-01, End date: 2017-02-28
