Professor Francesc Dilmé works at the Institute for Microeconomics at the University of Bonn and is a member of the ECONtribute and HCM Clusters of Excellence and a multi-site Collaborative Research Center also involving the University of Mannheim. He wants to use his ERC Starting Grant to study price negotiations in dynamic markets: “The aim is to come up with a new systematic analysis of markets in which players have different amounts of information at their fingertips.”
Dilmé expects his funding from the EU to enable him to attract leading researchers in his field to Bonn and dedicate more time to his research. “The Starting Grant will allow me to advance the understanding of how information is conveyed through prices on decentralized markets, such as real estate and financial markets,” he says. He also intends to study the efficiency of these markets and assess the effectiveness of various sets of rules.
Dilmé studied physics and mathematics in the Spanish city of Barcelona before completing a degree in Economics at the London School of Economics in the UK and a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. He joined the University of Bonn in 2013, assuming a professorship in 2019. In 2017, he spent six months conducting research at the University of California, Berkeley.
New possibilities for data analysis
Professor Joachim Freyberger from the Institute of Finance and Statistics at the University of Bonn is likewise a member of the HCM and plans to use his Starting Grant to develop new statistical methods. “The increasing availability of large sets of data, coupled with the advent of much more powerful computers, is opening up new possibilities for analyzing data,” he explains. He is hoping that the new methods allow more reliable conclusions to be drawn in a range of applications.
Freyberger intends to use his EU funding to forge even closer links with international researchers and train doctoral students.
Born in Bonn, he studied econometrics and operations research in the Dutch city of Maastricht and gained his doctorate in Economics at Northwestern University in the US. Following six years at the University of Wisconsin, likewise in the US, he took up his professorship at the University of Bonn in 2019.
How does our memory influence our opinions and expectations?
Economics is based on the assumption that people act in a forward-looking way, with the decisions that we make dependent on our individual preconceptions and expectations—when we buy stocks and shares, for instance. “The project is aiming for a better understanding of how opinions and expectations are formed, following an approach using insights from memory research,” Professor Florian Zimmermann says.
The researcher works at the briq and at the University of Bonn and is a member of ECONtribute. The project being funded by the ERC via a Starting Grant takes as its premise the idea that, when people form opinions and expectations, they often intuitively search their memory for any knowledge and experience of a particular subject that is already there to draw on. “Individual decisions made based on opinions and expectations can also have a significant influence on macroeconomic trends and crises,” the researcher explains.
Zimmermann studied economics in Mannheim and at the University of California, Los Angeles in the US, gaining his doctorate from the Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE) at the University of Bonn. After spending time researching at the University of California, San Diego and Harvard University and working as a postdoc at the University of Zurich, he joined the briq in 2017 and accepted a professorship there two years later.
ERC Starting Grants support excellent early-career researchers
The ERC awards its Starting Grants to exceptional researchers who are just embarking on their careers. This particular strand of EU funding is worth up to €1.5 million over five years.
About the ECONtribute and HCM Clusters of Excellence
Run jointly by the Universities of Bonn and Cologne, ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy is Germany’s only Cluster of Excellence in economics. It was set up to improve our understanding of markets and find a new way of analyzing how they fail that takes account of the social, technological and economic challenges of our times such as growing inequality, political polarization and global financial crises.
One of several Clusters of Excellence at the University of Bonn, the HCM comprises six units whose research activities range from pure and applied mathematics and economic questions with a mathematical bent through to interdisciplinary research. One key aim of the HCM is to support early-career researchers in an independent and international environment.
Media contacts:
Prof. Dr. Francesc Dilmé
Institute for Microeconomics at the University of Bonn
ECONtribute and Hausdorff Center for Mathematics Clusters of Excellence
Phone +49 228-737957
Email: fdilme@uni-bonn.de
Prof. Dr. Joachim Freyberger
Institute of Finance and Statistics at the University of Bonn
Hausdorff Center for Mathematics Cluster of Excellence
Phone +49 228-739268
Email: freyberger@uni-bonn.de
Prof. Dr. Florian Zimmermann
Behavior and Inequality Research Institute (briq)
ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence
Phone +49 228-3894704
Email: florian.zimmermann@uni-bonn.de
