ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

The computation of equilibria in dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with heterogeneous agents has become increasingly important in macroeconomics and public finance. For a given example-economy, i.e. a given specification of preferences, technologies and market-arrangements these methods compute an (approximate) equilibrium and allow for quantitative statements about one equilibrium of the example-economy. Through these so-called 'computational experiments' many economic insights can be obtained by analyzing quantitative features of realistically calibrated models. Unfortunately, economists often use ad hoc computational methods with poorly understood properties that produce approximate solutions of unknown quality. The research-project outlined in this proposal has three goals: Building theoretical foundations for analyzing dynamic equilibrium models, developing efficient and stable algorithms for the computation of equilibria in large scale models and applying these algorithms to macroeconomic policy analysis.

1 114 800 €

Start date: 2011-10-01, End date: 2016-09-30

The advent of the Internet and the increased power of modern day computing have dramatically changed the economic landscape. Billions of dollars worth of goods are being auctioned among geographically dispersed buyers; online brokerages are used to find jobs, trade stocks, make travel arrangements, etc. The architecture of these online (trading) platforms is typically rooted in their pre-Internet counterparts, and advances in the theory of market design combined with increased computing capabilities prompt a careful re-evaluation. This proposal concerns the creation of novel, more flexible institutions using an approach that combines theory, laboratory experiments, and practical policy. The first project enhances our understanding of newly designed package auctions by developing equilibrium models of competitive bidding and measuring the efficacy of alternative formats in controlled experiments. The next project studies novel market forms that allow for all-or-nothing trades to alleviate inefficiencies and enhance dynamic stability when complementarities exist. The third project concerns the design of market regulation and procurement contests to create better incentives for research and development. The fourth project addresses information aggregation properties of alternative voting institutions, suggesting improvements for referenda and jury/committee voting. The Internet has also dramatically altered the nature of social interactions. Emerging institutions such as online social networking tools, rating systems, and web-community Q&A services reduce social distances and catalyze opportunities for social learning. The final project focuses on social learning in a variety of settings and on the impact of social networks on behavior. Combined these projects generate insights that apply to a broad array of social and economic environments and that will guide practitioners to the use of better designed institutions.

1 797 525 €

Start date: 2010-01-01, End date: 2015-12-31

Well-designed mobile, human responsive geographic information technology could improve the lives of millions who daily need to make time critical and societally relevant decisions on the go. However, what are the basic processes with which humans make visuo-spatial decisions when guided by responsive geographic information displays? Visualization research todate has been driven by technical and computational advances to overcome data deluges, but we still have a poor understanding whether, how, and when visual displays support spatio-temporal decision making and action, and for which kinds of users. We will break new ground to overcome this transdisciplinary knowledge gap and aim to: (1) integrate fragmented human-visualization-environment research across the sciences including natural, social/behavioral, and the engineering sciences, all critical to tackle this interdisciplinary problem, (2) develop missing, empirically evaluated design guidelines for human-computer interfaces of current/emerging mobile geographic information technology to support affective, effective, and efficient spatio-temporal decision-making, (3) develop unconventional evaluation methods by critical examination of how perceptual, cognitive, psycho-physiological, and display design factors might influence visuo-spatio-temporal decision making across broad ranges of users and mobile use contexts, and (4) scale up empirical methods from to-date controlled behavioral lab paradigms towards a new in-situ mobile human sensor science. A paradigm shift from current lab-based neuro-cognitive and affective science towards a location-based, close human sensing science will radically change the way we study human behavior across science. In doing so, we can improve spatio-temporal every-day decision making with graphic displays, and facilitate sustainable solutions for the increasingly mobile digital information society having to mitigate environmental emergencies, human refugee crises, or terror attacks.

2 500 000 €

Start date: 2017-11-01, End date: 2022-10-31

"I analyze theoretically and empirically the role played by grievances and hostile beliefs in ethnic conflicts. I study the interaction between economic incentives, endogenous salience of ethnic identities, belief dynamics and conflicts. In particular I analyze the formation of oppositional ethnic identities, which correspond to group-specific systems of beliefs leading to distrust and use of violence. Those issues are at the intersection of the literatures on the economics of conflicts and the economics of social identity. They involve both micro- and macro- aspects. I provide an applied theory framework to articulate the analysis and I perform both experimental and empirical investigations to test the main theoretical predictions. The project is ambitious but realistic. It has the potential for important contributions to the current literature: the topic is important, original and unexplored using formal and quantitative methods. My methodological approach encompasses state-of-the-art theory and thought-provocative empirical strategies. The approach is grounded in quantitative economics. However the proposal draws many insights from other disciplines in the social and biological sciences. This proposal is a revised version of my research project which was selected for the second step of the previous ERC 2011 call."

1 031 370 €

Start date: 2013-01-01, End date: 2017-12-31

This project aims at developing theoretical and empirical research on the structural transformation that accompanies economic development and on the determinants of its success or failure. This transformation involves changes in policies, institutions, and even preferences and social hierarchies. The project consists of four subprojects. Since China represents the most spectacular ongoing episode of economic transition, four of them focus on the Chinese experience, while the remaining ones address general issues in growth and development. The first subproject analyses some puzzling features of China's recent growth experience, such as the coexistence of high growth with increasing capital export, and the falling labour share, with the aid of a theory which emphasises the efficiency gains associated with the reallocation between firms of different productivity. Since changes in income distribution are an important element, and a concern, of the Chinese transition, the three following subprojects focus, respectively, on the crisis of the system of old age insurance, the effects of the rise of the middle class, and the introduction of special economic zones in the 1980s. Two subprojects study different aspects of competition policy in development. The first one focuses on intellectual property right protection, emphasising the link between innovation, technology adoption and human capital accumulation. The second one studies the coordinating role of industrial policy and how its scope changes with development. The last two subprojects focus on culture. The diffusion of preferences and values that foster cooperation rather than conflict is no less important than incentives for technology adoption. Likewise, the rise of an "entrepreneurial spirit" is an engine of growth in the development transition. We plan to study the emergence and cultural transmission of preferences that are conducive to economic growth, and how they interact with the process of structural change.

1 599 996 €

Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2014-06-30

Should the people be allowed to vote on the adoption of immigration restrictions that violate international law? Should it be permissible to launch a citizens’ initiative demanding the reintroduction of the death penalty? May a proposal be put to a popular vote despite the fact that voters are not properly informed about its effects? With the mushrooming of direct-democratic instruments throughout Europe and the introduction of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), the relationship between popular sovereignty and the rule of law is set to become one of the defining political issues of our time. Yet despite their great practical relevance, the questions of where the legal limits of direct democracy should be drawn and how compliance with these limits should be reviewed have remained almost completely unexplored. This leaves a major gap in the research that has serious repercussions for the functionality and legitimacy of direct democracy. It is the ambitious objective of LIDD to provide the scientific basis for resolving this urgent challenge. By innovatively combining comparative legal analysis with both qualitative and quantitative methods from other social sciences, the project builds on the experience made with various direct-democratic mechanisms in order to develop general conclusions. Part 1 of LIDD distils a core of issues that is regarded as being beyond the reach of direct democracy across all European states and elaborates best practices that will help states define and apply the limits of direct democracy in a sensible way. Part 2 identifies common European minimum standards that institutional and procedural systems for reviewing compliance with these limits must satisfy and makes suggestions for improving these systems. Part 3 applies the findings from Parts 1 and 2 to the EU level; it shows how the admissibility requirements that an ECI must meet should be adapted and clarified and how the admissibility procedure could be improved.

1 963 935 €

Start date: 2018-11-01, End date: 2023-10-31

This proposal develops a new perspective on social systems by combining analytical sociology with evolutionary game theory, agent-based modeling, computational social science, complexity science, and experimental research. Our focus on co-evolutionary processes will shed new light on emergent phenomena in social systems and elaborate a “social ecosystem” perspective. We will overcome problems of previous approaches by implementing social mechanisms, learning rules, and parameters in an evolutionary way. Our major goal is to show how a “homo socialis” can emerge as the result of an evolutionary competition. For this, we will demonstrate that strict payoff maximization or mechanistic, stimulus-response interactions may eventually be replaced by other-regarding behaviors. In particular, we will study how social cooperation and social norms emerge from repeated social interactions. We will furthermore equip agents with small virtual “brains” and simulate the co-evolution of individual and societal complexity. This will add cognitive complexity to our modeling approach and allow us to study origins and effects of subjectivity, but also early stages in human social evolution. We plan to demonstrate that, in a complex society, boundedly rational agents can perform equally well as a perfect “homo economicus”, and that both types of agents emerge and spread under different conditions. Our project is broad and highly interdisciplinary. It combines various methodologies and pursues an innovative complexity science approach to solve long-standing scientific puzzles. It has the potential to bridge previously incompatible research traditions by revealing unexpected and seemingly paradoxical relationships between them. Thereby, it will help to overcome existing controversies and the related fragmentation in the social sciences.

2 498 831 €

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

International law erects high hurdles for change – typically unanimity or a uniformity of practice of states – and this high threshold has provoked much criticism for hindering the pursuit of justice, the provision of public goods, and the democratic revision of political choices. Yet in different areas, such as international criminal law or the law of international organizations, international law has in recent times undergone more rapid change than the traditional picture would allow, and often in informal ways that do not fit classical categories. However, this greater dynamism has found little sustained attention in scholarship so far. The PATHS project seeks to fill this gap and understand when and how international law changes, how this change is registered among participants in legal discourses and how the pathways of change differ across issue areas and sites of international legal practice. Drawing on scholarship in international law and international relations, it aims to trace attempts at informal change in international law in six issue areas, identify relevant factors behind the developments in those cases, and understand how they relate to the formal categories of international legal change. The project expects significant variation in the ‘paths’ of change in different contexts and issue areas, with an important role for global institutions – international organizations, courts, and expert bodies – in many of them. PATHS also seeks to assess these paths normatively: it explores what mechanisms for change would be legitimate in an international legal order that has increasingly turned from a quasi-contractual institution into a structure of governance with a far more limited role for state consent than in the past. With this focus on change, PATHS aims to make a major contribution to our understanding of international law, its political dynamics, as well as its normative grounding in a globalised world.

2 475 275 €

Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30

As the critical sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program demonstrate, the implementation of sanctions (SANCT) against nuclear proliferators (PRO) has lead to the creation of a global system of surveillance of the financial dealings of all states, banks and individuals, fostered by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. This is a new and unprecedented development in transnational governance. This research will apply a sociological perspective to the study of this new “transnational legal order” by analyzing how new actors, institutions and legal technologies shape the processes of norm-creation and rules-implementation in the field of nuclear nonproliferation. PROSANCT asks: How have the social characteristics of the actors in charge of designing and implementing sanctions influenced the creation of new norms in the field of nonproliferation? Which legal technologies and which discursive practices have these new actors developed to impose their authority and their legitimacy on the regulation of global financial transactions? Answering these questions will generate a better understanding of key processes in global governance: 1) the increasing role of the UNSC as a global legislator through top-down processes of norms diffusion; 2) the “financialization” of global regulation, with the increasing role played by international financial institutions, which were historically foreign to the field of nuclear nonproliferation; and 3) the “judicialization” of the enforcement of sanctions, and the associated reconfiguration of relations between executive and judicial authorities in charge of punishing nuclear proliferators and sanctions-evaders at the domestic level. To study these legal processes in various contexts (the United States and Europe), PROSANCT applies a multi-methods approach that combines interview-based methods with politicians, high-level bureaucrats and diplomats, and experts, and archival research.

1 499 788 €

Start date: 2017-03-01, End date: 2022-02-28