Project acronym CEAD
Project Contextualizing Evidence for Action on Diabetes in low-resource Settings: A mixed-methods case study in Quito and Esmeraldas, Ecuador.
Researcher (PI) Lucy Anne Parker
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD MIGUEL HERNANDEZ DE ELCHE
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The relentless rise in diabetes is one of the greatest global health emergencies of the 21st century. The increase is most pronounced in low and middle income countries where today three quarters of people with diabetes live and over 80% of the deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases occur. In light of the wealth of knowledge already available about how to tackle the problem, most major international organizations call for the adoption healthy public policies and initiatives to strengthening health systems. However, implementation of recommended action remains limited in many settings. Most evidence comes from high-income settings and may generate recommendations that cannot be successfully implemented in other settings without careful consideration and contextualization. I propose here that this “know-do” gap can be reduced by revealing the barriers to implementing evidence-based recommendations, engaging local stakeholders in developing context-led innovations and developing a tool-kit for contextualizing and implementing diabetes recommendations in low-resource settings. I plan the research in two carefully selected settings in Ecuador, with mixed-methods combining quantitative epidemiological research and qualitative methodology to generate the rich and varied knowledge that is required to trigger policy action and/or changes in care models. Furthermore, I will engage patients, community members, health workers and decision makers in the process of knowledge generation, interpretation and use. The overarching objective is hence, to explore the process by which global recommendations can be translated into context-specific, evidence-informed action for diabetes prevention in low-resource settings. The findings will support the global endeavour to bridge the global “know-do” gap, one of the most important public health challenges this century and a great opportunity for strengthening health systems and achieving health equity.
Summary
The relentless rise in diabetes is one of the greatest global health emergencies of the 21st century. The increase is most pronounced in low and middle income countries where today three quarters of people with diabetes live and over 80% of the deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases occur. In light of the wealth of knowledge already available about how to tackle the problem, most major international organizations call for the adoption healthy public policies and initiatives to strengthening health systems. However, implementation of recommended action remains limited in many settings. Most evidence comes from high-income settings and may generate recommendations that cannot be successfully implemented in other settings without careful consideration and contextualization. I propose here that this “know-do” gap can be reduced by revealing the barriers to implementing evidence-based recommendations, engaging local stakeholders in developing context-led innovations and developing a tool-kit for contextualizing and implementing diabetes recommendations in low-resource settings. I plan the research in two carefully selected settings in Ecuador, with mixed-methods combining quantitative epidemiological research and qualitative methodology to generate the rich and varied knowledge that is required to trigger policy action and/or changes in care models. Furthermore, I will engage patients, community members, health workers and decision makers in the process of knowledge generation, interpretation and use. The overarching objective is hence, to explore the process by which global recommendations can be translated into context-specific, evidence-informed action for diabetes prevention in low-resource settings. The findings will support the global endeavour to bridge the global “know-do” gap, one of the most important public health challenges this century and a great opportunity for strengthening health systems and achieving health equity.
Max ERC Funding
1 475 334 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym DYMOLAMO
Project Dynamic Modeling of Labor Market Mobility and Human Capital Accumulation
Researcher (PI) Joan LLULL CABRER
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIÓ MARKETS, ORGANIZATIONS AND VOTES IN ECONOMICS
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2018-STG
Summary In today’s globalized world, labor mobility is at the core of the political debate and a centerpiece for economic policy. The design of migration policies, such as selective, skill-biased, immigration policies, policies to encourage the integration of immigrants, or ones that facilitate geographical mobility to increase labor market opportunities of disadvantaged workers, requires a good understanding of a more fundamental issue: understanding the role of internal migration and immigration in shaping the career paths and human capital accumulation of workers. This project aims at providing a coherent analysis that allows us to understand the interactions between labor mobility and human capital accumulation, and their implications for economic policy design.
This project focuses on three main issues: labor mobility, labor market effects of immigration, and the interaction between the two. Our questions are: (a) What are the role of temporary and permanent contracts in shaping career paths and geographic mobility of workers? (b) Does the forgone human capital accumulation during a recession produce a lost generation? Is this alleviated by geographical mobility? (c) What is the role of geographical and occupational mobility in spreading or containing the effects of technological progress on wage inequality? (d) To what extent selective immigration policies maximize native workers’ prospects and wellbeing? (e) How can we increase degree of assimilation of immigrants?
To address these questions, we will develop dynamic equilibrium models that explicitly characterize human capital accumulation decisions of workers and how these decisions interact with migration. Our proposed models will introduce rich labor market structures and a variety of economic shocks. They will require the implementation of novel estimation methods, which we will also develop. The estimated models will be used to evaluate and design key economic policies for the labor market.
Summary
In today’s globalized world, labor mobility is at the core of the political debate and a centerpiece for economic policy. The design of migration policies, such as selective, skill-biased, immigration policies, policies to encourage the integration of immigrants, or ones that facilitate geographical mobility to increase labor market opportunities of disadvantaged workers, requires a good understanding of a more fundamental issue: understanding the role of internal migration and immigration in shaping the career paths and human capital accumulation of workers. This project aims at providing a coherent analysis that allows us to understand the interactions between labor mobility and human capital accumulation, and their implications for economic policy design.
This project focuses on three main issues: labor mobility, labor market effects of immigration, and the interaction between the two. Our questions are: (a) What are the role of temporary and permanent contracts in shaping career paths and geographic mobility of workers? (b) Does the forgone human capital accumulation during a recession produce a lost generation? Is this alleviated by geographical mobility? (c) What is the role of geographical and occupational mobility in spreading or containing the effects of technological progress on wage inequality? (d) To what extent selective immigration policies maximize native workers’ prospects and wellbeing? (e) How can we increase degree of assimilation of immigrants?
To address these questions, we will develop dynamic equilibrium models that explicitly characterize human capital accumulation decisions of workers and how these decisions interact with migration. Our proposed models will introduce rich labor market structures and a variety of economic shocks. They will require the implementation of novel estimation methods, which we will also develop. The estimated models will be used to evaluate and design key economic policies for the labor market.
Max ERC Funding
1 400 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-11-01, End date: 2023-10-31
Project acronym EllipticPDE
Project Regularity and singularities in elliptic PDE's: beyond monotonicity formulas
Researcher (PI) Xavier ROS-OTON
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE1, ERC-2018-STG
Summary One of the oldest and most important questions in PDE theory is that of regularity. A classical example is Hilbert's XIXth problem (1900), solved by De Giorgi and Nash in 1956. During the second half of the XXth century, the regularity theory for elliptic and parabolic PDE's experienced a huge development, and many fundamental questions were answered by Caffarelli, Nirenberg, Krylov, Evans, Nadirashvili, Friedman, and many others. Still, there are problems of crucial importance that remain open.
The aim of this project is to go significantly beyond the state of the art in some of the most important open questions in this context. In particular, three key objectives of the project are the following. First, to introduce new techniques to obtain fine description of singularities in nonlinear elliptic PDE's. Aside from its intrinsic interest, a good regularity theory for singular points is likely to provide insightful applications in other contexts. A second aim of the project is to establish generic regularity results for free boundaries and other PDE problems. The development of methods which would allow one to prove generic regularity results may be viewed as one of the greatest challenges not only for free boundary problems, but for PDE problems in general. Finally, the third main objective is to achieve a complete regularity theory for nonlinear elliptic PDE's that does not rely on monotonicity formulas. These three objectives, while seemingly different, are in fact deeply interrelated.
Summary
One of the oldest and most important questions in PDE theory is that of regularity. A classical example is Hilbert's XIXth problem (1900), solved by De Giorgi and Nash in 1956. During the second half of the XXth century, the regularity theory for elliptic and parabolic PDE's experienced a huge development, and many fundamental questions were answered by Caffarelli, Nirenberg, Krylov, Evans, Nadirashvili, Friedman, and many others. Still, there are problems of crucial importance that remain open.
The aim of this project is to go significantly beyond the state of the art in some of the most important open questions in this context. In particular, three key objectives of the project are the following. First, to introduce new techniques to obtain fine description of singularities in nonlinear elliptic PDE's. Aside from its intrinsic interest, a good regularity theory for singular points is likely to provide insightful applications in other contexts. A second aim of the project is to establish generic regularity results for free boundaries and other PDE problems. The development of methods which would allow one to prove generic regularity results may be viewed as one of the greatest challenges not only for free boundary problems, but for PDE problems in general. Finally, the third main objective is to achieve a complete regularity theory for nonlinear elliptic PDE's that does not rely on monotonicity formulas. These three objectives, while seemingly different, are in fact deeply interrelated.
Max ERC Funding
1 335 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym EXTREME
Project The Rise and Fall of Populism and Extremism
Researcher (PI) Maria PETROVA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2018-STG
Summary In the recent years in advanced democracies there has been a wave of electoral successes of populist politicians supporting extreme messages. Is populism caused by negative economic shocks? If so, what are the mechanisms? What explains heterogeneity in responses to such shocks? In this project, I will test empirically if personal experiences, information environment, and their interaction with aggregate economic shocks shape people’s political decisions. The project consists of three parts.
First, I will study how personal employment histories, potentially affected by globalization and technological shocks, individual predispositions, and information environment influenced voting for Trump. I will use a unique database of more than 40 million resumes for the period 2010-2016, the largest available repository of resumes of job-seekers in the US, which was not previously used in academic research, and match it with zipcode-level economic and voting variables.
Second, I will study how negative social experiences during the formative years affect subsequent labor market outcomes, antisocial behavior, and the support of populist agenda. I will examine how corporal punishment in schools in UK affected subsequent educational attainment, employment, antisocial behavior, and voting for UKIP and Brexit. I will digitize archival records on regulations and practice of corporal punishment in different educational authorities in the UK during 1970-80s, combining it with contemporary outcomes.
Third, I will examine what makes people actively resist extremist regimes even when it is associated with high personal costs. I will study a historical example of resistance to Nazi regime in Germany during the WWII, which provides unique methodological opportunity to study determinants of resistance to extremism in a high stake environment. I will use a self-collected dataset on treason cases to measure resistance, combining it with data on bombing and exposure to foreign propaganda.
Summary
In the recent years in advanced democracies there has been a wave of electoral successes of populist politicians supporting extreme messages. Is populism caused by negative economic shocks? If so, what are the mechanisms? What explains heterogeneity in responses to such shocks? In this project, I will test empirically if personal experiences, information environment, and their interaction with aggregate economic shocks shape people’s political decisions. The project consists of three parts.
First, I will study how personal employment histories, potentially affected by globalization and technological shocks, individual predispositions, and information environment influenced voting for Trump. I will use a unique database of more than 40 million resumes for the period 2010-2016, the largest available repository of resumes of job-seekers in the US, which was not previously used in academic research, and match it with zipcode-level economic and voting variables.
Second, I will study how negative social experiences during the formative years affect subsequent labor market outcomes, antisocial behavior, and the support of populist agenda. I will examine how corporal punishment in schools in UK affected subsequent educational attainment, employment, antisocial behavior, and voting for UKIP and Brexit. I will digitize archival records on regulations and practice of corporal punishment in different educational authorities in the UK during 1970-80s, combining it with contemporary outcomes.
Third, I will examine what makes people actively resist extremist regimes even when it is associated with high personal costs. I will study a historical example of resistance to Nazi regime in Germany during the WWII, which provides unique methodological opportunity to study determinants of resistance to extremism in a high stake environment. I will use a self-collected dataset on treason cases to measure resistance, combining it with data on bombing and exposure to foreign propaganda.
Max ERC Funding
1 467 736 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym MAGNESIA
Project The impact of highly magnetic neutron stars in the explosive and transient Universe
Researcher (PI) Nanda Rea
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The gravitational wave window is now open. It is then imperative to build quantitative models of neutron stars that use all the available tracers to constrain fundamental physics at the highest densities and magnetic fields. The most magnetic neutron stars, the magnetars, have been recently suggested to be powering a large variety of explosive and transient events. The enormous rotational power at birth, and the magnetic energy they can release via large flares, put the magnetars in the (yet) hand-wavy interpretations of gamma-ray bursts, the early phases of double neutron star mergers, super-luminous supernovae, hypernovae, fast radio bursts, and ultra-luminous X-ray sources. However, despite knowing about 30 magnetars, we are lacking a census of how many we expect within the pulsar population, nor we have robust constraints on their flaring rates. The recent discovery of transient magnetars, of magnetar-like flares from sources with measured low dipolar magnetic fields and from typical radio pulsars, clearly showed that the magnetar census in our Galaxy is largely under-estimated. This hampers our understanding not only of the pulsar and magnetar populations, but also of them as possibly related to many of Universe’s explosive events. MAGNESIA will infer a sound Magnetar Census via an innovative approach that will build the first Pulsar Population Synthesis model able to cope with constraints/limits from multi-band observations, and taking into account 3D magnetic field evolution models and flaring rates for neutron stars. Combining expertise in multi-band observations, numerical modeling, nuclear physics, and computation, MAGNESIA will solve the physics, the observational systematic errors, and the computational challenges that inhibited previous works, to finally constrain the spin period and magnetic field distribution at birth of the neutron star population.
Summary
The gravitational wave window is now open. It is then imperative to build quantitative models of neutron stars that use all the available tracers to constrain fundamental physics at the highest densities and magnetic fields. The most magnetic neutron stars, the magnetars, have been recently suggested to be powering a large variety of explosive and transient events. The enormous rotational power at birth, and the magnetic energy they can release via large flares, put the magnetars in the (yet) hand-wavy interpretations of gamma-ray bursts, the early phases of double neutron star mergers, super-luminous supernovae, hypernovae, fast radio bursts, and ultra-luminous X-ray sources. However, despite knowing about 30 magnetars, we are lacking a census of how many we expect within the pulsar population, nor we have robust constraints on their flaring rates. The recent discovery of transient magnetars, of magnetar-like flares from sources with measured low dipolar magnetic fields and from typical radio pulsars, clearly showed that the magnetar census in our Galaxy is largely under-estimated. This hampers our understanding not only of the pulsar and magnetar populations, but also of them as possibly related to many of Universe’s explosive events. MAGNESIA will infer a sound Magnetar Census via an innovative approach that will build the first Pulsar Population Synthesis model able to cope with constraints/limits from multi-band observations, and taking into account 3D magnetic field evolution models and flaring rates for neutron stars. Combining expertise in multi-band observations, numerical modeling, nuclear physics, and computation, MAGNESIA will solve the physics, the observational systematic errors, and the computational challenges that inhibited previous works, to finally constrain the spin period and magnetic field distribution at birth of the neutron star population.
Max ERC Funding
2 263 148 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym MapModern
Project Social Networks of the Past: Mapping Hispanic and Lusophone Literary Modernity, 1898-1959
Researcher (PI) Diana Roig Sanz
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIO PER A LA UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Data mining and big data approaches are changing the ways in which we create knowledge, access information and preserve our cultural heritage. This research applies cutting-edge technology to analyse a neglected aspect of European and non-European social and cultural life of the 20th century: the impact of Hispanic and Lusophone literary networks and cultural mediators in international modernity between 1898 and 1959. The project pursues three central goals: 1) to retrieve the lost history of Iberoamerican mediators in modernist intercultural and multilingual networks and reappraise their role; 2) to narrow the knowledge divide in terms of access and production in the Iberoamerican field by generating and making freely available new and reliable data that addresses the lack of documented cultural heritage, and 3) to offer an innovative and reproducible model that can be applied across periods, languages, and disciplines to analyse cross-border phenomena, under-examined mediators and networks and overshadowed geographical scales in their relations to the wider world. These goals will be achieved by a twofold methodology: i) an open and collaborative research tool providing a data source for quantitative and qualitative analysis on Iberoamerican mediators, and ii) four subprojects on key cultural transformation processes distinctive of modern societies (the institutionalization of Iberoamerican cultures, the rise of translated literature in key Iberoamerican modernist journals, the position of Iberoamerican women in the cultural field, and the role of Iberoamerican mediators in new forms of mass media). By combining computational methods, cultural, literary history, translation, sociology, gender and media studies, I will lead an interdisciplinary team of 6 researchers that will fill the gap in modernist studies and will offer an original, reproducible and empirically tested method for studying social human interaction within a global, cultural and decentred approach
Summary
Data mining and big data approaches are changing the ways in which we create knowledge, access information and preserve our cultural heritage. This research applies cutting-edge technology to analyse a neglected aspect of European and non-European social and cultural life of the 20th century: the impact of Hispanic and Lusophone literary networks and cultural mediators in international modernity between 1898 and 1959. The project pursues three central goals: 1) to retrieve the lost history of Iberoamerican mediators in modernist intercultural and multilingual networks and reappraise their role; 2) to narrow the knowledge divide in terms of access and production in the Iberoamerican field by generating and making freely available new and reliable data that addresses the lack of documented cultural heritage, and 3) to offer an innovative and reproducible model that can be applied across periods, languages, and disciplines to analyse cross-border phenomena, under-examined mediators and networks and overshadowed geographical scales in their relations to the wider world. These goals will be achieved by a twofold methodology: i) an open and collaborative research tool providing a data source for quantitative and qualitative analysis on Iberoamerican mediators, and ii) four subprojects on key cultural transformation processes distinctive of modern societies (the institutionalization of Iberoamerican cultures, the rise of translated literature in key Iberoamerican modernist journals, the position of Iberoamerican women in the cultural field, and the role of Iberoamerican mediators in new forms of mass media). By combining computational methods, cultural, literary history, translation, sociology, gender and media studies, I will lead an interdisciplinary team of 6 researchers that will fill the gap in modernist studies and will offer an original, reproducible and empirically tested method for studying social human interaction within a global, cultural and decentred approach
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-12-01, End date: 2023-11-30
Project acronym MarsFirstWater
Project The physicochemical nature of water on early Mars
Researcher (PI) Alberto Gonzalez Fairen
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Concepts of large bodies of glacial ice and liquid standing water, a robust hydrological cycle, and a rich Martian history of climate change are part of the current consensus model for early Mars. However, questions still poorly constrained include: a precise understanding of the inventory of water during the first billion years of Mars history and its early evolution on both global and local scales; whether liquid or solid H2O dominated, for what duration of time and where the water resided; what were the host-rock weathering rates and patterns and the physicochemical parameters defining such interactions; what specific landforms and mineralogies were generated during those periods; and what implications all these processes had on the possible inception of life on Mars. These fundamental questions represent large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the basic characteristics of water on early Mars is very much needed and is the focus of this proposal.
This application outlines a plan for my research in the next five years, and explains how I propose to fully characterize the aqueous environments of early Mars through a quantitative and truly interdisciplinary investigation. Spacecraft mission-derived datasets will be consistently used to test hypotheses through paleogeomorphological reconstructions, geochemical modeling, mineralogical studies, and astrobiological investigations. The derived results will produce hard constraints on the physical evolution, chemical alteration and habitability of surface and near-surface aqueous environments on early Mars. The planned investigations will benefit from the combination of working with first-hand data from ongoing Mars missions and with the state-of-the-art laboratory tools at the host institution. The final expected result will be a complete understanding of the physicochemical nature of water on early Mars, also opening new paths for the astrobiological exploration of the planet.
Summary
Concepts of large bodies of glacial ice and liquid standing water, a robust hydrological cycle, and a rich Martian history of climate change are part of the current consensus model for early Mars. However, questions still poorly constrained include: a precise understanding of the inventory of water during the first billion years of Mars history and its early evolution on both global and local scales; whether liquid or solid H2O dominated, for what duration of time and where the water resided; what were the host-rock weathering rates and patterns and the physicochemical parameters defining such interactions; what specific landforms and mineralogies were generated during those periods; and what implications all these processes had on the possible inception of life on Mars. These fundamental questions represent large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the basic characteristics of water on early Mars is very much needed and is the focus of this proposal.
This application outlines a plan for my research in the next five years, and explains how I propose to fully characterize the aqueous environments of early Mars through a quantitative and truly interdisciplinary investigation. Spacecraft mission-derived datasets will be consistently used to test hypotheses through paleogeomorphological reconstructions, geochemical modeling, mineralogical studies, and astrobiological investigations. The derived results will produce hard constraints on the physical evolution, chemical alteration and habitability of surface and near-surface aqueous environments on early Mars. The planned investigations will benefit from the combination of working with first-hand data from ongoing Mars missions and with the state-of-the-art laboratory tools at the host institution. The final expected result will be a complete understanding of the physicochemical nature of water on early Mars, also opening new paths for the astrobiological exploration of the planet.
Max ERC Funding
1 998 368 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym OPTNETSPACE
Project Optimal Transport Networks in Spatial Equilibrium
Researcher (PI) Edouard SCHAAL
Host Institution (HI) Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI)
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH1, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Every year, the world economy invests a large amount of resources to improve or develop transport infrastructure. How should these investments be allocated to maximize social welfare? In this proposal, I propose to develop and apply new methods to study optimal transport networks in general-equilibrium models of international trade, urban economics and economic geography. The methodology will build on recent work (Fajgelbaum and Schaal, 2017), in which my coauthor and I studied the network design problem in a general neoclassical trade framework.
In the first project, I develop a new framework to analyze optimal infrastructure investment in an urban setting. The model features people commuting between residential areas and business districts as well as a choice over the mode of transportation. We plan to evaluate the framework to historical data about specific cities.
In the second project, I propose and implement an new algorithm to compute optimal transport networks in the presence of increasing returns to transport, a likely prominent feature of real-world networks. The algorithm applies a branch-and-bound method in a series of geometric programming relaxations of the problem.
In the third project, I study the dynamic evolution of actual transport networks using satellite data from the US, India and Mexico. In the spirit of Hsieh and Klenow (2007), I use the model to measure distortions in the placement of roads between rich and poor countries.
In the fourth project, I study the inefficiencies and welfare losses associated with political economy frictions among governments and planning agencies. I use the model to identify inefficiencies and relate them to measures of institutions and political outcomes.
In the final project, I propose a new explanation behind the Zipf’s law distribution of city sizes. I show that Zipf’s law may result from particular topological properties of optimal transport networks that allocate resources efficiently in space.
Summary
Every year, the world economy invests a large amount of resources to improve or develop transport infrastructure. How should these investments be allocated to maximize social welfare? In this proposal, I propose to develop and apply new methods to study optimal transport networks in general-equilibrium models of international trade, urban economics and economic geography. The methodology will build on recent work (Fajgelbaum and Schaal, 2017), in which my coauthor and I studied the network design problem in a general neoclassical trade framework.
In the first project, I develop a new framework to analyze optimal infrastructure investment in an urban setting. The model features people commuting between residential areas and business districts as well as a choice over the mode of transportation. We plan to evaluate the framework to historical data about specific cities.
In the second project, I propose and implement an new algorithm to compute optimal transport networks in the presence of increasing returns to transport, a likely prominent feature of real-world networks. The algorithm applies a branch-and-bound method in a series of geometric programming relaxations of the problem.
In the third project, I study the dynamic evolution of actual transport networks using satellite data from the US, India and Mexico. In the spirit of Hsieh and Klenow (2007), I use the model to measure distortions in the placement of roads between rich and poor countries.
In the fourth project, I study the inefficiencies and welfare losses associated with political economy frictions among governments and planning agencies. I use the model to identify inefficiencies and relate them to measures of institutions and political outcomes.
In the final project, I propose a new explanation behind the Zipf’s law distribution of city sizes. I show that Zipf’s law may result from particular topological properties of optimal transport networks that allocate resources efficiently in space.
Max ERC Funding
887 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym ReadCalibration
Project Phonemic representations in speech perception and production: Recalibration by readingacquisition
Researcher (PI) Clara, Dominique, Sylvie Martin
Host Institution (HI) BCBL BASQUE CENTER ON COGNITION BRAIN AND LANGUAGE
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH4, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The main goal of this project is to demonstrate that reading acquisition (RA) drastically reshapes our phonemic inventory, and to investigate the time-course and fine-grained properties of this recalibration. The main innovative and ground-breaking aspect of this project is the merging of two research fields, (1) reading acquisition and (2) phonemic recalibration, together with a deep and extensive exploration of the (3) perception-production link, which results in a new research line that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of the complex interactions between auditory and visual language perception and production.
We will demonstrate that phonemic representations (PRs) become more stable (less dispersed) during the process of learning to read, and that this recalibration varies according to the grapheme-phoneme conversion rules of the reading system. We will explore such recalibration by means of the first cross-linguistic longitudinal study examining the position and dispersion of PRs, both in perception and production of phonemes and words. Secondly, we will explore how recalibration develops when RA is impaired as is the case in dyslexic children –informing the research field on (4) dyslexia– and when pre-reading PRs are unstable as is the case in deaf children with cochlear implants –informing the research field on (5) deafness. Finally, the research will also be extended to PR recalibration during RA in a second language –informing the research on (6) bilingualism.
This proposal provides the first systematic investigation of phonemic recalibration during literacy acquisition, and will provide important insight for pragmatic research and theoretical accounts of language perception and production and phonemic recalibration. This project will also have major implications for the clinical field (theories and remediation of dyslexia and deafness) and for social policies and education (bilingualism, spoken and written language teaching).
Summary
The main goal of this project is to demonstrate that reading acquisition (RA) drastically reshapes our phonemic inventory, and to investigate the time-course and fine-grained properties of this recalibration. The main innovative and ground-breaking aspect of this project is the merging of two research fields, (1) reading acquisition and (2) phonemic recalibration, together with a deep and extensive exploration of the (3) perception-production link, which results in a new research line that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of the complex interactions between auditory and visual language perception and production.
We will demonstrate that phonemic representations (PRs) become more stable (less dispersed) during the process of learning to read, and that this recalibration varies according to the grapheme-phoneme conversion rules of the reading system. We will explore such recalibration by means of the first cross-linguistic longitudinal study examining the position and dispersion of PRs, both in perception and production of phonemes and words. Secondly, we will explore how recalibration develops when RA is impaired as is the case in dyslexic children –informing the research field on (4) dyslexia– and when pre-reading PRs are unstable as is the case in deaf children with cochlear implants –informing the research field on (5) deafness. Finally, the research will also be extended to PR recalibration during RA in a second language –informing the research on (6) bilingualism.
This proposal provides the first systematic investigation of phonemic recalibration during literacy acquisition, and will provide important insight for pragmatic research and theoretical accounts of language perception and production and phonemic recalibration. This project will also have major implications for the clinical field (theories and remediation of dyslexia and deafness) and for social policies and education (bilingualism, spoken and written language teaching).
Max ERC Funding
1 875 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym RIVERS
Project Water/human rights beyond the human? Indigenous water ontologies, plurilegal encounters and interlegal translation
Researcher (PI) Lieselotte VIAENE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary RIVERS’s main challenge is to produce ground-breaking knowledge, from an empirical, interdisciplinary and dialoguing perspective, about the contentions and challenges intrinsic to reconceptualising human rights with different ways of understanding and relating to water. Worldwide, indigenous peoples are mobilising against the neoliberalisation of nature, demonstrating radically different ways of knowing, being and living. At the same time, in 2010 the UN acknowledged water as a human right, while in 2017 New Zealand, India and Colombia established ground-breaking legal precedents by granting rivers human rights. RIVERS’s overarching research question is: To what extent can international human rights law come to grips with plurilegal water realities? This project engages with one of the most pressing questions of this century: the relationship between humans and nature. RIVERS tackles two intertwined core objectives: 1) analysing different ways of knowing and relating to water and life among indigenous peoples and their understanding of its (potential) violation by extractive projects; 2) discussing the contributions, challenges and pitfalls of interlegal translation of differing water natures in plurilegal encounters at domestic and international levels. RIVERS will develop a multi-sited analysis and empirical case-studies in three contexts: Colombia, Nepal and the UN human rights protection system. Through the lens of legal pluralism, this will foreground competing political and legal water realities that interrogate dominant understandings of the modern world. RIVERS will address two interrelated research challenges: 1) indigenous visions/practices: beyond water as a natural resource and human right; 2) the UN human rights system: towards counter-hegemonic water knowledge production. This project will pioneer new ways of thinking about water beyond the modern divides of nature/culture, providing clues about future paths towards reconceptualising human rights.
Summary
RIVERS’s main challenge is to produce ground-breaking knowledge, from an empirical, interdisciplinary and dialoguing perspective, about the contentions and challenges intrinsic to reconceptualising human rights with different ways of understanding and relating to water. Worldwide, indigenous peoples are mobilising against the neoliberalisation of nature, demonstrating radically different ways of knowing, being and living. At the same time, in 2010 the UN acknowledged water as a human right, while in 2017 New Zealand, India and Colombia established ground-breaking legal precedents by granting rivers human rights. RIVERS’s overarching research question is: To what extent can international human rights law come to grips with plurilegal water realities? This project engages with one of the most pressing questions of this century: the relationship between humans and nature. RIVERS tackles two intertwined core objectives: 1) analysing different ways of knowing and relating to water and life among indigenous peoples and their understanding of its (potential) violation by extractive projects; 2) discussing the contributions, challenges and pitfalls of interlegal translation of differing water natures in plurilegal encounters at domestic and international levels. RIVERS will develop a multi-sited analysis and empirical case-studies in three contexts: Colombia, Nepal and the UN human rights protection system. Through the lens of legal pluralism, this will foreground competing political and legal water realities that interrogate dominant understandings of the modern world. RIVERS will address two interrelated research challenges: 1) indigenous visions/practices: beyond water as a natural resource and human right; 2) the UN human rights system: towards counter-hegemonic water knowledge production. This project will pioneer new ways of thinking about water beyond the modern divides of nature/culture, providing clues about future paths towards reconceptualising human rights.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 446 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30
