Project acronym INFOCOMP
Project Information and Competition
Researcher (PI) F Xavier Vives Torrents
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE NAVARRA
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary The project deals with economies with private information. Despite the growing body of work about economies with dispersed information there are at least three important stumbling blocks in the received literature that prevent scientific progress: lack of understanding of the dynamics of markets involving complementarities and information; consideration of public information as exogenous; and avoidance or extreme simplification of welfare analysis (e.g. because of the lack of a well-defined welfare benchmark and/or the presence of reduced-form un-modeled agents such as noise traders). I plan to contribute to remove these obstacles to progress by developing the theory of games with strategic complementarities and incomplete information; introducing static and dynamic models where public information is endogenous; doing away with noise traders and replacing them by hedgers, and performing a welfare analysis with an appropriate welfare benchmark for private information economies. This will be accomplished by developing a series of models where agents can use complex strategies (such as supply functions or demand schedules) and where dynamics matter. The tools used will involve game theory, information economics, market microstructure analysis, theoretical industrial organization and financial intermediation theory. The potential applications will concentrate mostly on industrial organization, and banking and finance.
Summary
The project deals with economies with private information. Despite the growing body of work about economies with dispersed information there are at least three important stumbling blocks in the received literature that prevent scientific progress: lack of understanding of the dynamics of markets involving complementarities and information; consideration of public information as exogenous; and avoidance or extreme simplification of welfare analysis (e.g. because of the lack of a well-defined welfare benchmark and/or the presence of reduced-form un-modeled agents such as noise traders). I plan to contribute to remove these obstacles to progress by developing the theory of games with strategic complementarities and incomplete information; introducing static and dynamic models where public information is endogenous; doing away with noise traders and replacing them by hedgers, and performing a welfare analysis with an appropriate welfare benchmark for private information economies. This will be accomplished by developing a series of models where agents can use complex strategies (such as supply functions or demand schedules) and where dynamics matter. The tools used will involve game theory, information economics, market microstructure analysis, theoretical industrial organization and financial intermediation theory. The potential applications will concentrate mostly on industrial organization, and banking and finance.
Max ERC Funding
1 290 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-05-01, End date: 2014-04-30
Project acronym INSECUREASSETS
Project SECURITIES IN TIMES OF INSECURITY: ASSET RETURNS AND HOLDINGS DURING POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CRISES IN EUROPE, 1900-1950
Researcher (PI) Hans-Joachim Voth
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary This project assembles a new dataset on asset returns in four European countries between 1900 and 1950. Most of the information we have today about the performance of different asset classes comes from relatively 'tranquil', stable periods. Yet what happens to the value of one's savings matters all the more when times are not good, and labor income is low. This is the fundamental insight of the consumption capital asset pricing model. The four countries in this study experienced among them the full range of 'horrors and disasters' that could befall investors. By going beyond published statistics on index values, we will obtain a much more accurate picture of how investors fared. Systematically collecting individual-level return data for four European countries at a time of great turmoil will allow me to address a number of canonical asset pricing puzzles: Why are average returns on stocks so high? Why do bonds generally do so poorly? And why would anyone hold gold, given that the long-run average return is quite low? If the recent literature on pricing assets via their value in 'disaster periods' is right, we should find that holding stocks turned out to be much riskier than normally assumed, based on the standard data sets for rich countries in the last fifty years. The opposite ought to be true for bonds and gold. To find out, I will use a wealth of notarial and bank records, combined with tax-based material, a close reading of the legal literature, and probates, to track as closely as possible how individual investors fared in an age characterized by war, political turmoil, revolution, and expropriation.
Summary
This project assembles a new dataset on asset returns in four European countries between 1900 and 1950. Most of the information we have today about the performance of different asset classes comes from relatively 'tranquil', stable periods. Yet what happens to the value of one's savings matters all the more when times are not good, and labor income is low. This is the fundamental insight of the consumption capital asset pricing model. The four countries in this study experienced among them the full range of 'horrors and disasters' that could befall investors. By going beyond published statistics on index values, we will obtain a much more accurate picture of how investors fared. Systematically collecting individual-level return data for four European countries at a time of great turmoil will allow me to address a number of canonical asset pricing puzzles: Why are average returns on stocks so high? Why do bonds generally do so poorly? And why would anyone hold gold, given that the long-run average return is quite low? If the recent literature on pricing assets via their value in 'disaster periods' is right, we should find that holding stocks turned out to be much riskier than normally assumed, based on the standard data sets for rich countries in the last fifty years. The opposite ought to be true for bonds and gold. To find out, I will use a wealth of notarial and bank records, combined with tax-based material, a close reading of the legal literature, and probates, to track as closely as possible how individual investors fared in an age characterized by war, political turmoil, revolution, and expropriation.
Max ERC Funding
2 099 800 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-04-01, End date: 2014-03-31
Project acronym LABPOL
Project Labor Markets, Economic Fluctuations, and Monetary Policy
Researcher (PI) Jordi Galí
Host Institution (HI) Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI)
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary The New Keynesian (NK) model has emerged in recent years as the workhorse for monetary policy analysis. The first part of the proposed project is motivated by two shortcomings of that framework: (i) the lack of an explicit analysis of unemployment and its potential role in the design of policy, (ii) the limited empirical support for the model s wage-setting block. One of the objectives of the proposed project is the assessment of the empirical relevance of the specification of the wage-setting bock found in standard versions of the NK model, with a special focus on their implied wage-unemployment dynamics. As part of my project, I will show how the standard NK model with staggered wage setting implies a relationship between wage inflation and unemployment that fails to capture important features of the data. I also plan to develop and study an extension of the NK model that incorporates in a tractable way real wage rigidities (coexisting with nominal rigidities), with the objective of (i) assessing their relative role in explaining the observed patterns of wages and unemployment, (ii) analyzing their implications for the design of monetary policy. The second part of the project is motivated by the significant changes in the co-movements among some key macro variables that have accompanied the recent period of low macroeconomic volatility (the so-called Great Moderation). One objective of the proposed research is to understand the role that structural change in the labor market may have played as a source of those changes. In particular, I plan to analyze the causes of the vanishing pro-cyclicality of labor productivity and their potential causes, including a more subdued use of labor hoarding by firms, possibly as a result of lower hiring/firing costs. In addition, I plan to study the consequences that such structural changes may have had on wage setting, and their ability to account for the apparent increase in wage flexibility during the recent period.
Summary
The New Keynesian (NK) model has emerged in recent years as the workhorse for monetary policy analysis. The first part of the proposed project is motivated by two shortcomings of that framework: (i) the lack of an explicit analysis of unemployment and its potential role in the design of policy, (ii) the limited empirical support for the model s wage-setting block. One of the objectives of the proposed project is the assessment of the empirical relevance of the specification of the wage-setting bock found in standard versions of the NK model, with a special focus on their implied wage-unemployment dynamics. As part of my project, I will show how the standard NK model with staggered wage setting implies a relationship between wage inflation and unemployment that fails to capture important features of the data. I also plan to develop and study an extension of the NK model that incorporates in a tractable way real wage rigidities (coexisting with nominal rigidities), with the objective of (i) assessing their relative role in explaining the observed patterns of wages and unemployment, (ii) analyzing their implications for the design of monetary policy. The second part of the project is motivated by the significant changes in the co-movements among some key macro variables that have accompanied the recent period of low macroeconomic volatility (the so-called Great Moderation). One objective of the proposed research is to understand the role that structural change in the labor market may have played as a source of those changes. In particular, I plan to analyze the causes of the vanishing pro-cyclicality of labor productivity and their potential causes, including a more subdued use of labor hoarding by firms, possibly as a result of lower hiring/firing costs. In addition, I plan to study the consequences that such structural changes may have had on wage setting, and their ability to account for the apparent increase in wage flexibility during the recent period.
Max ERC Funding
600 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2011-12-31
Project acronym SSD
Project Social capital and enforcement of informal contracts in developing economies
Researcher (PI) Jean-Marie Baland
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE DE NAMUR ASBL
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary In the absence of formal contracts and sanctioning agencies, many economic exchanges are based on informal arrangements that cannot be enforced through courts or monitored by external parties. In this project, we study the role of social capital in generating social sanctions that agents can use to enforce informal arrangements. Typically, in the literature, social sanctions are posited parametrically, and are supposed to be used unilaterally whenever there is a breach in the contract . They are thus conceived essentially as an instrument to sustain existing agreements. This argument however relies on unduly restrictive assumptions on the nature and the use of social sanctions: they are costless and they can be used only against defecting members. We intend to go beyond the literature by properly modelling what constitutes a social sanction, so as to provide stronger micro-foundations to this concept. We therefore intend to first investigate the mechanisms through which social capital, in the sense of dense interdependence between agents, generates social sanctions. In a second step, we will explore the impact of social sanctions in sustaining existing agreements, allowing sanctions to be used to force agents to renege on their obligations if such defection is beneficial to their particular group. To give an example, in the context of micro-credit, group members can use social sanctions to enforce repayment of the loan to the bank but, with appropriate norms and beliefs, they can also use the same sanctions to enforce collective default against the lending agency. At the theoretical level, we will explore the role of social sanctions in micro-credit groups, in collective action problems and in informal insurance arrangements. We shall also carry out two empirical projects based on original data sets: one on the evolution of microfinance groups in India, and the other on social sanctions and pressures for interpersonal redistribution in Cameroon.
Summary
In the absence of formal contracts and sanctioning agencies, many economic exchanges are based on informal arrangements that cannot be enforced through courts or monitored by external parties. In this project, we study the role of social capital in generating social sanctions that agents can use to enforce informal arrangements. Typically, in the literature, social sanctions are posited parametrically, and are supposed to be used unilaterally whenever there is a breach in the contract . They are thus conceived essentially as an instrument to sustain existing agreements. This argument however relies on unduly restrictive assumptions on the nature and the use of social sanctions: they are costless and they can be used only against defecting members. We intend to go beyond the literature by properly modelling what constitutes a social sanction, so as to provide stronger micro-foundations to this concept. We therefore intend to first investigate the mechanisms through which social capital, in the sense of dense interdependence between agents, generates social sanctions. In a second step, we will explore the impact of social sanctions in sustaining existing agreements, allowing sanctions to be used to force agents to renege on their obligations if such defection is beneficial to their particular group. To give an example, in the context of micro-credit, group members can use social sanctions to enforce repayment of the loan to the bank but, with appropriate norms and beliefs, they can also use the same sanctions to enforce collective default against the lending agency. At the theoretical level, we will explore the role of social sanctions in micro-credit groups, in collective action problems and in informal insurance arrangements. We shall also carry out two empirical projects based on original data sets: one on the evolution of microfinance groups in India, and the other on social sanctions and pressures for interpersonal redistribution in Cameroon.
Max ERC Funding
720 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2013-12-31
