ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

According to the European Commission, to design effective policies for ensuring a “more dynamic, innovative and competitive” economy, it is essential to understand the decision-making process of firms as they differ a lot in terms of their capacities and policy responses (EC 2007). The objective of my future research is to provide such an analysis. BIGlobal will examine the sources of firm growth and market power to provide new insights into welfare and policy in a globalized world. Much of analysis of the global economy is set in the paradigm of markets that allocate resources efficiently and there is little role for policy. But big firms dominate economic activity, especially across borders. How do firms grow and what is the effect of their market power on the welfare impact of globalization? This project will determine how firm decisions matter for the aggregate gains from globalization, the division of these gains across different individuals and their implications for policy design. Over the next five years, I will incorporate richer firms behaviour in models of international trade to understand how trade and industrial policies impact the growth process, especially in less developed markets. The specific questions I will address include: how can trade and competition policy ensure consumers benefit from globalization when firms engaged in international trade have market power, how do domestic policies to encourage agribusiness firms affect the extent to which small farmers gain from trade, how do industrial policies affect firm growth through input linkages, and what is the impact of banking globalization on the growth of firms in the real sector. Each project will combine theoretical work with rich data from developing economies to expand the frontier of knowledge on trade and industrial policy, and to provide a basis for informed policymaking.

1 313 103 €

Start date: 2017-12-01, End date: 2022-11-30

The overarching objective of this interdisciplinary project is to elucidate mechanisms through which billions of individual clocks in the body communicate with each other and tick in harmony. The mammalian circadian timing system consists of a master clock in the brain and subsidiary oscillators in almost every cell of the body. Since these clocks anticipate environmental changes and function together to orchestrate daily physiology and behavior their temporal synchronization is critical. Our recent finding that oxygen serves as a resetting cue for circadian clocks points towards the unprecedented involvement of blood gases as time signals. We will apply cutting edge continuous physiological measurements in freely moving animals, alongside biochemical/molecular biology approaches and advanced cell culture setup to determine the molecular role of oxygen, carbon dioxide and pH in circadian clock communication and function. The intricate nature of the mammalian circadian system demands the presence of communication mechanisms between clocks throughout the body at multiple levels. While previous studies primarily addressed the role of the master clock in resetting peripheral clocks, our knowledge regarding the communication among clocks between and within peripheral organs is rudimentary. We will reconstruct the mammalian circadian system from the bottom up, sequentially restoring clocks in peripheral tissues of a non-rhythmic animal to (i) obtain a system-view of the peripheral circadian communication network; and (ii) study novel tissue-derived circadian communication mechanisms. This integrative proposal addresses fundamental aspects of circadian biology. It is expected to unravel the circadian communication network and shed light on how billions of clocks in the body function in unison. Its impact extends beyond circadian rhythms and bears great potential for research on communication between cells/tissues in various fields of biology.

1 999 945 €

Start date: 2018-03-01, End date: 2023-02-28

This proposal presents three broad projects on information frictions in households' credit markets and on the consequences of these frictions for durable good markets. Specifically, an influential theoretical literature in information economics has shown that borrowing constraints can arise in equilibrium when borrowers and lenders have asymmetric information about borrowers' risks. Hence, the first project aims to provide the first empirical analyses of markets (i.e., demand and supply) with asymmetric information and nonexclusive trades---i.e., markets in which households can purchase multiple insurance contracts, such as in life insurance markets, or can open multiple credit lines, such as in credit card markets. The second project aims to study recent regulations of fees and prices in markets for consumer financial products, such as mortgages, that could have the unintended consequences of increasing households' cost of credit and, thus, of tightening their borrowing constraints. Finally, the third project aims to study the role of borrowing constraints in durable goods markets, with a special focus on car markets during the Great Recession. All these projects aim to develop and estimate structural models using data from different markets. I further plan to use the estimated structural parameters to perform counterfactual policy analyses in each of the specific markets analyzed in these projects.

1 550 945 €

Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31

Determination of organismal size is a fundamental biological question. Vertebrate size is established based on total cell number generated during development. Despite the 75 million-fold difference in size between the smallest and largest mammals, the mechanisms for this remain to be determined. This proposal seeks insight into how total cell number is determined in both pathological and physiological states. Over the last decade our study of extreme growth disorders has identified 18 new human disease genes. We established these encode core components of the cell-cycle machinery, providing cellular and developmental insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of these disorders. From our starting point of human disease, this approach also revealed novel genome instability genes informing fundamental research of basic biological processes. Still, the molecular basis for over half of individuals with microcephalic dwarfism remains unknown. This proposal will break new ground through the comprehensive application of Whole Genome Sequencing to our patient cohort to achieve screen saturation via identification of coding and non-coding mutations. Forward-genetic genome-wide CRISPR screens in developmentally relevant cell and organoid systems will also be developed to define key cellular processes impacting human growth. Beyond these ‘discovery science’ approaches, cellular and model organism techniques will be used to define the mechanistic basis for human disease caused by mutations in core replication machinery and key epigenetic factors. To extend prior work on pathophysiological mechanisms, we aim to establish a subset of microcephalic dwarfism genes as growth regulators, and thereby further define when and how organism size is determined. These studies will link essential cellular machinery governing proliferation with human disease, identify novel genome-stability factors and may yield insights into the developmental regulation of mammalian size.

2 500 000 €

Start date: 2018-08-01, End date: 2023-07-31

Whether (and why) the market for consumer credit is inefficient is still an open question with important implications for household well-being. The research in this proposal will study sources of inefficiencies in two burgeoning consumer credit institutions: high-cost credit and on-line marketplaces. Each institution serves borrowers on opposite ends of the wealth and credit risk spectrum. Thus, they provide an ideal laboratory for studying the wide range of economic frictions that shape the access and price of credit for households. Despite growing attention from academics and severe scrutiny by policymakers, the economic and social impact of both institutions are yet not well understood. The first stream of projects in the proposal is aimed at providing new evidence on the trade-offs involved in the use of high-cost credit. High-cost credit, such as Payday loans, is often the only source of funding for poor households. Alleviating liquidity shortages with high-cost credit may have negative long term consequences for financial health, an effect often attributed to borrower self-control problems. In the first project of the stream I use data from a Payday lender in the U.K. to explore a new channel for this effect—reputation—that does not rely on borrower irrationality. The second project combines data from 21 police forces in the U.K. to evaluate the social consequences of high-cost credit through the lens of criminal behavior. The second stream of projects characterizes previously unexplored sources of adverse selection in credit markets, with substantive positive and normative implications. Using data from the largest on-line marketplace in the U.S., I aim to demonstrate how asymmetric information distorts maturity choice, and how information gathering by the lender can drive away low-risk borrowers. The final project of this stream will use previously unavailable data to produce the first comprehensive characterization of on-line credit marketplaces worldwide.

1 017 851 €

Start date: 2018-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31

The mammalian liver is a heterogeneous, yet highly structured organ, which performs diverse functions to maintain organismal homeostasis. Hepatocytes operate in repeating hexagonally shaped units termed lobules that are polarized by centripetal blood flow and morphogens. This polarized microenvironment facilitates optimal function by localizing specific processes to distinct lobule layers, a phenomenon known as ‘liver zonation’. While zonation of some key liver functions has been known for years, using spatially resolved single cell transcriptomics, we recently discovered that about 50% of liver genes are zonated. This surprisingly broad spatial heterogeneity raises a fundamental question - do hepatocytes form a uniform population that differs due to spatially graded inputs or are hepatocytes at different zones in fact distinct cell types? In this proposal we will tackle this question by developing techniques for sorting massive amounts of hepatocytes from defined tissue coordinates at high spatial resolution using zonated surface markers, new zonated reporter mouse models and mRNA content. We will perform a deep and comprehensive profiling of the hepatocyte genome, methylome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome and metabolome at each zone to characterize liver zonation at all relevant cellular scales. We will also develop an ex-vivo system to functionally characterize the response of hepatocytes from distinct zones to identical input stimuli and the ability of hepatocytes to inter-convert to hepatocytes with differing zonal identities. These experiments will be performed in different metabolic states and along a high fat diet. This project will uncover new features of liver zonation in health and disease and redefine the hepatocyte cell state. Our approach for spatially refined tissue omics can be extended to other structured mammalian organs, thus opening new avenues of research in Systems Biology of mammalian tissues.

2 000 000 €

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

The last decade had seen an increasing recognition that financial markets play a key role over the business cycle. Still, there have not been many detailed, systematic, empirical investigations on the consumption, employment and investment effects of the interaction between macroeconomic policies and the evolving structure of credit markets. This proposal aims to develop a research agenda over the next five years that combines insights from disaggregated data sets --which are either newly available or I propose to construct-- on (i) mortgage originations, (ii) the supply of household financial products and (iii) firms’ debt originations, with the development of theoretical frameworks that introduce credit supply and demand heterogeneity in the analyses of consumption and investment decisions. Three features of this proposal make it of potentially high impact. On the empirical side, the analysis of existing and novel detailed households’, firms’ and lenders’ data sets will allow us to identify new stylized facts on the transmission of monetary policy to real activity through financial markets (and leverage and asset prices in particular). On the theoretical side, these stylized facts will be used to develop and discriminate among competing channels of macroeconomic policy transmission. Finally, the regularity highlighted in both the empirical and theoretical analyses will inform the public debate on the design of future monetary and macro-prudential policy interventions.Each project (i)-(iv) describes an overall theme, which is expected to have several ramifications in terms of publishable papers, policy reports and possibly dissertation contents for PhD student(s).

1 135 940 €

Start date: 2018-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31

''It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future'' - Mark Twain. Yet, Gordon Moore's predictions - known as Moore's Law - made in 1965 remained valid for half a century! As a result, semi-conductor technology is approaching nano-scale integration and on this journey to quantum futures the traveller enters the world of quantum physics, where many of the phenomena are rather different from those of classical physics. This proposal contributes to the 'quantum jig-saw puzzle', with special emphasis on the enabling techniques of ubiquitous quantum communications, potentially leading to job- and wealth-creation on a similar scale to the economic benefits of flawless classic wireless communications. My ultimate goal as a telecommunications researcher is to build bridges across the exciting fields of quantum physics, mathematics, computer science and hardware aspects of quantum communications. Specifically, the three Key Challenges of Work-Packages 1-3 on the new concept of Pareto-optimum error control, secret key-distribution, network coding and entanglement distribution will lead to creating stepping-stones for the Grand Challenge of Work-Package 4, dedicated to the support of quantum-communications for aircraft 'above the clouds'. Methodology: theoretical performance bounds will be established based on the hitherto unexplored Pareto-optimum quantum design philosophy using multi-component optimization. Explicitly, the Pareto-front of optimal solutions will be found off-line, where none of the conflicting parameters, such as the bit-error ratio, transmit power, delay and implementation complexity can be improved without degrading some of the others. A suite of new soft-decision aided components will be conceived by invoking code-specific quantum syndrome decoders to be designed for iterative soft-information exchange without perturbing the fragile quantum states. Finally, quantum-communications solutions will be created for drones and planes.

2 496 372 €

Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31

While the detection of weak signals (down to the single photon level) in the optical frequency range is routine on account of the high photon energy (compared to thermal excitation energy kBT) and the availability of efficient detectors, this is not the case in the radio frequency (RF) and microwave frequency regimes wherein thermal (Johnson) noise in detectors swamps out the faint RF signals (in applications from radio astronomy, MRI to radar) and requires the use of cryogenic amplifiers. The ability to map signals efficiently from the microwave to optical regime becomes paramount for distant systems to communicate with each other using low loss telecom fibers. Both classical (radio over fiber systems) and quantum (linking two superconducting qubit processors in two dilution fridges) information processing systems will benefit greatly from the development of an efficient RF to optical signal transducer. I have been developing efficient RF to optical transduction schemes in GaAs cavity optomechanical systems (KC Balram et al., Nature Photonics (2016)) by exploiting its favorable piezoelectric (for coupling RF signals to propagating acoustic waves) and elasto-optic (for engineering strong acousto-optic interactions) properties. In this project, I would like to extend this work and address the issue of weak RF signal detection by up-converting RF signals to the optical domain using integrated Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) and shot-noise limited optical detection. Piezoelectric SBS systems can also be used to build high frequency, high gain RF amplifiers with noise figures that can be lower than conventional RF amplifiers. Working in a novel GaAs on insulator platform helps provide some unique advantages (tightly confined acoustic and optical modes with large modal overlap and a large elasto-optic coefficient leading to significant Brillouin gain) while holding the potential for interfacing complex circuitry in a well-established III-V materials platform.

1 712 581 €

Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31