Research Reports: "la Caixa" Foundation Grants

The "la Caixa" Foundation supports ground-breaking research at the Barcelona School of Economics through the "la Caixa" Foundation Research Grants on Socioeconomic Well-being.


Fifteen research projects led by 18 BSE Affiliated Professors were selected from a competitive open call to receive "la Caixa" Foundation Grants in 2017, 2018, and 2019. All proposals were evaluated by a Scientific Committee of experts, who chose projects with ground-breaking methodologies and direct implications for socioeconomic well-being.

icon
18 RESEARCHERS / 15 PROJECTS


8 EUROPEAN RESEARCH COUNCIL (ERC) GRANTS

working paper in progress
14 WORKING PAPERS

icon
14 JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS


157 SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES

View all Projects and Results

La Caixa Foundation. Together, we bring projects to life.

Worker Reallocation, Occupational Mismatch, and Business Cycles

Principal Investigator:
Isaac Baley (UPF and BSE)

This project analyzes the role of information frictions and labor market imperfections in generating occupational mismatch—the misalignment between workers’ abilities and the requirements of their occupations, and assess quantitatively how mismatch interacts with the business cycle.

View project results

Assortative Mating and Joint Income Dynamics of Couples

Principal Investigator:
Christopher Busch (UAB, MOVE and BSE)

This project uses rich tax register data from Denmark to explore empirical regularities in matching patterns of couples and to take high-resolution pictures of the labor income dynamics of males, females and the joint income dynamics of couples.

View project results

The Effects of Firm-Level Uncertainty on Firm Employment Decisions

Principal Investigator:
Andrea Caggese (UPF and BSE)

This project aims to provide novel empirical evidence on the relation between firm-specific uncertainty shocks and firm employment decisions.

View project results

A New Approach to Estimate the Effects of Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policy

Principal Investigator:
Barbara Rossi (ICREA-UPF and BSE)

This project proposes a new approach to analyze economic shocks. We show how to identify such shocks and how to trace their effects in the economy using a procedure that we call "VARs with functional shocks".

View project results

Understanding and Regulating Complexity in Markets

Principal Investigator:
Victoria Vanasco (CREI, UPF and BSE)

This project explores the determinants and implications of asset complexity and market opacity in environments with asymmetric information, and the role of regulation in enhancing efficiency.

View project results

Economic Fluctuations, Heterogeneity and Macroeconomic Policies

Principal Investigator:
Davide Debortoli (UPF, CREI and BSE)

The main goal of this project was to develop a general framework to assess the role of households heterogeneity for the propagation of aggregate fluctuations, and the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies, both in macro models and in actual economies. 

View project results

Inequality, Political Instability and Long-Term Development

Principal Investigators:
Joan-Maria Esteban (IAE-CSIC and BSE) and Laura Mayoral (IAE-CSIC and BSE)

This project aims at understanding how the unequal distribution of resources has contributed to the formation and consolidation of states on the one hand, and to political instability and conflict on the other.

View project results

The Economic and Political Effects of Espionage

Principal Investigator:
Albrecht Glitz (UPF and BSE)

The objective of this project is to study quantitatively the economics behind industrial and political espionage.

View project results

Social Insurance and Economic Growth

Principal Investigators:
Pau Milan (UAB, MOVE and BSE) and Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis (UAB, MOVE and BSE)

The goal of this project is to analyze the potential trade-offs between the provision of social insurance and productivity through village networks.

View project results

Coordinating against the Mafia: Experimental Evidence from an anti-Racket Policy in Sicily

Principal Investigator:
Luigi Pascali (UPF and BSE)

The aim of this project is to test and evaluate the effectiveness of a policy aimed at increasing the level of generalized trust and, through this channel, at inducing entrepreneurs to be more vocal in opposing the payment of pizzo.

View project results

Analyzing Conflict from Space

Principal Investigators:
André Gröger (UAB and BSE) and Hannes Mueller (ICREA-IAE and BSE)

This project seeks to provide a new, automatized way to capture fighting and destruction using satellite imagery, build a panel dataset using this method, and then illustrate what can be learned from this alternative measure of violence.

View project results

Causal Effects of Early Interventions on Child Health and Cognitive Development

Principal Investigator:
Libertad González (UPF and BSE)

The project examines a range of policies that target children at a very early age and evaluates the effects of these policies on health and cognitive development from birth to adolescence.

View project results

Labor Market Effects of Selective Immigration Policies

Principal Investigator:
Joan Llull (MOVE, UAB and BSE)

The project uncovers the two main mechanisms by which the immigration of high skilled workers affects natives.

View project results

Stabilization Policies and Growth: A Keynesian Growth Perspective

Principal Investigator:
Luca Fornaro (CREI, UPF and BSE)

The project is part of a larger effort to develop a novel growth approach that emphasizes the relationship between the demand side of the economy and productivity growth.

View project results

Understanding Risk and Time Preferences

Principal Investigator:
Jose Apesteguia (ICREA-UPF and BSE)

The project develops a simple, tractable and sound stochastic framework for the joint treatment of risk and time preferences that will enable the proper estimation of risk and time attitudes.

View project results