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CEBI launched September 2017
Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI) was officially established on September 1 and CEBI members moved physically together in new facilities at the 2nd floor of building 35 at the CSS campus in mid-October. The opening ceremony was held on November 29 with speeches by Chair of the Danish National Research Foundation Liselotte Højgaard, Dean of Social Sciences Troels Østergaard Sørensen and CEBI Director Claus Thustrup Kreiner, followed by short presentations of research projects by CEBI guest Thomas Epper (St. Gallen and Zürich) and junior researchers at CEBI Jeppe Druedahl, Torben Heien Nielsen and Miriam Gensowski.
Public interest in the CEBI research agenda
The announcement, when the Danish National Research Foundation had decided to found a new center studying the role of economic behavior for the formation of inequality, was followed by large articles in the Danish newspapers Weekendavisen and Jyllands-Posten (featured on the front page). At the start-up date September 1, the Danish radio channel Radio 24/7 broadcasted a one-hour interview with Claus Thustrup Kreiner by science journalist Lone Frank. Activities of CEBI will be posted on the new CEBI webpage www.econ.ku.dk/cebi.
CEBI hires competent administrative staff
The CEBI research program relies on the high quality Danish administrative register data at Statistics Denmark and combining this data with experimental and survey data. The newly hired center data manager, Pernille Bang, has more than 20 years of experience with data handling and governance at Statistics Denmark. The new center administrator Tine Ceccardi has substantial experience with research support and local knowledge from working at the Department of Economics.
CEBI initiatives targeted at junior researchers
CEBI started a new lunch seminar series with internal presentations each Monday of research ideas and work-in-progress. Because CEBI members span different fields of Economics, this is a unique opportunity to get broad discussions of ideas and methods. In particular, junior researchers are encouraged to present their work and ideas to obtain early feedback from senior researchers. Marco Piovesan organized a PhD course in December on Behavior and Incentives with Mathias Sutter, Director of the Experimental Economics Group at the Max Planck Institute. A goal for CEBI is that all PhD students visit a top department for a longer period. In the fall of 2017, Katrine Jakobsen visited the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.
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CEBI workshops and seminars
In the fall of 2017, CEBI hosted a workshop on tax evasion behavior and inequality and a workshop on applied empirical methods with international participants from Berkeley, Michigan and Princeton. In 2018, CEBI plans to organize a workshop on consumption behavior and inequality and a workshop on empirical methods. CEBI organized seminars in the fall of 2017, including events with Christopher Carroll from John Hopkins University and Isabelle Brocas from University of Southern California. From the beginning of 2018, the CEBI seminar series will be up and running with weekly presentations by external speakers.
CEBI members receive grants and recognition
CEBI researchers, with Mette Gørtz as principal investigator, received a large grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation to analyze the formation of health inequality and the role of health innovations and the behavior of patients and doctors. Thomas Epper received the Latsis Prize at a ceremony at the University of St. Gallen “for his demonstrably excellent research work”. David Dreyer Lassen was elected the 2018 chair of the Danish Independent Research Fund – Social Science (FSE).
CEBI members publish in top journals
Niels Johannesen published an article in the American Economic Review on the effects of the recent financial crisis on borrowing and spending behavior of households. David Dreyer Lassen and Niels Johannesen published an article in the Journal of the European Economic Association on hidden wealth in offshore bank accounts. Alexander Sebald published an article in the Economic Journal on the risk of biases in randomized policy experiments.
CEBI will host major event in June 2018
The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) invites top-academic economists to be part of a network aiming at creating “a virtual centre of excellence for European economics”. Søren Leth-Petersen and Claus Thustrup Kreiner are CEPR research fellows. In June 2018, CEBI will host the annual Public Economics symposium of the CEPR. The symposium includes invited talks about inequality formation by world-leading scholars: Thomas Piketty from the Paris School of Economics who recently published the book Capital in the 21st Century, which is the greatest sales success ever of academic publisher Harvard University Press; CEBI member Ernst Fehr from the University of Zürich who is one of the most cited economists ever; and Fatih Guvenen from the University of Minnesota who has made core contributions to macroeconomic inequality research.
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