ExSIDE (Expectations and Social Influence Dynamics in Economics) - a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Training Network of six nations
Expectations play a crucial role in Economics
How will the stock market develop? Will I get a pay rise next year? When will the Central Bank change its interest rate policies? Expectations influence the behavior of many economic decision makers. The recent financial and economic crisis has highlighted again the importance of expectation dynamics for economic development as well as for the success of firm strategies and public policies. However, many aspects of the formation and implication expectations in Economics are still not well understood. The Innovative Training Network ExSIDE aims at improving our understanding of the role of expectation formation and social influence for economic dynamics and for the optimal design of economic policy.
ExSIDE’s main Research Agenda
Behavioural and Psychological Foundations of Expectation Formation
Work will address foundational issues of expectation formation combining experimental and empirical work with behavioral modeling. Different innovative techniques will be used to gain a systematic understanding of main properties of expectation formation processes in different economic settings. The insights about expectation formation processes stemming from these experimental and empirical analyses will be used in designing and calibrating expectation formation models to be integrated in modeling frameworks in different areas of economic analysis.
Social Influence and Opinion Diffusion
This topic focuses on the analysis of social influence dynamics in different economic settings and the development of expectation dynamics models incorporating social influence effects. In particular, it is studied how opinion diffusion and social contagion are affected by the presence of anti-conformist agents as well as by forward looking individuals. A key issue in this respect is in how far the emergence of homophily and segregation in networks is fostered by the existence of forward-looking individuals.
Role of Expectations and Social Influence for Economic Dynamics
The work in ExSIDE will analyze the effects of expectation dynamics on market dynamics in labour and financial markets as well as on macroeconomic dynamics. In particular, the implications of different types of expectation formation processes for the dynamics of key variables in these economic domains are explored. The design of the expectation formation models builds on experimental, empirical and theoretical insights obtained in the other research projects.
Policy Design under Consideration of Expectation Dynamics
This research area has a strong policy orientation and focuses on the optimal design of fiscal and monetary policy under proper consideration of the feedback between policies and the endogenous evolution of expectations in the population. The policy analyses are carried out in the framework of calibrated models in which individuals’ expectations are heterogeneous and evolve according to processes with empirical foundations. The analysis to a large extent relies on a combination of numerical methods and agent-based simulation.
We need new skills to study the formation and the impact of expectations
ExSIDE combines an interdisciplinary research agenda with an innovative European joint doctoral training program, which provides doctoral fellows with a broad range of expertise and skills needed for a thorough analysis of expectation formation processes and their role in Economics. Both the research projects and training activities will combine work in Behavioral Economics, Psychoanalysis, Opinion Formation, Network Theory, Agent-based Simulation and Economic Modeling in different areas. The academic training will be complemented by extensive Transferable Skills Training Measures, inter-sectoral Training Measures, provided by non-academic partners, and Career Development Training. Interaction with stakeholders, policy makers and the general public will play an important role in pursuing the ExSIDE agenda and disseminating the results.
Combining academic and non-academic excellence throughout Europe
The ExSIDE consortium consists of eight leading European universities: Bielefeld University (Germany, the coordinating institution), the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), University College London (England), the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano (Italy), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France), University of Surrey (England), and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy) and nine non-academic partners. Each of the 15 ExSIDE doctoral fellows is hosted by two universities, has a secondment with a non-academic partner and will graduate with a joint or double degree. The research and training in ExSIDE ensures world-wide employability of the ExSIDE graduates inside and outside academia and also contributes to the ability of European institutions and companies to develop efficient policies and strategies. ExSIDE is the largest European consortium offering a structured joint doctoral program awarding joint degrees in Economics.
Activities in ExSIDE
The official start of the program was January 2017. At a kick-off meeting in March all partners met to select the doctoral fellows and to deepen the future activities in the project.
The first network wide training event will take place from Sept. 25th to 29th in Amsterdam. Further meetings are taking place in March 2018 in Paris and June 2018 in Venice. For more information, please visit the ExSIDE webpage.
Webpage: http://exside-itn.eu/
Email: exside@wiwi.uni-bielefeld.de
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExSIDE1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Exside-292473124505748/