CEBI Highlights 2021

Book about CEBI

CEBI was launched at an opening event in November 2017. The research team has since then published more than 130 research articles in scientific journals. A new book about CEBI introduces the research agenda and describes some of the key research results for a broader audience. The book can be downloaded from the CEBI webpage or by clicking on the illustration below.

Publications in top academic journals

38 new articles by CEBI members at UCPH were published or accepted for publication in 2021. This includes articles in the top general purpose journals American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies and Journal of Political Economy, in top field journals such as American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and Journal of Public Economics, in the best survey outlet Journal of Economic Literature, and in the top general science journals PNAS and Science. For example, the research sheds new light on the development of gender inequality and inequality in life expectancy, on tax evasion behavior and health behavior, and on the formation of expectations and perceptions.

COVID-19 research in Science

CEBI members have contributed with many COVID-19 research results using their strong expertise on data analytics and human behavior. Pol Campos-Mercade is co-lead author on an article in Science that analyzes possible interventions to increase vaccine uptake, which has been a top priority around the world with some countries and regions paying money to people if they vaccinate, while others try to nudge people using information campaigns. Because of non-random selection into being vaccinated, it is impossible to draw firm conclusions about how effective the policy instruments are in boosting vaccine uptake from observational data.

Therefore, Pol and coauthors conducted a randomized control-trial experiment that combined survey data and administrative data for a large representative sample of individuals. The study documents large uptake-effects from paying people if they vaccinate. Surprisingly, none of the nudging interventions had any significant effect on people’s vaccination uptake.

Research presentations at top places

CEBI members gave 108 presentations in 2021. This includes keynote lectures by Claus Kreiner and Søren Leth-Petersen, three presentations at the CEPR Annual Public Policy Symposium by Asger Lau Andersen, Torben Heien Nielsen and Miriam Wüst, and seminar presentations by Niels Johannesen at Oxford University and Stanford University.

Input to policy making by CEBI members

Mette Ejrnæs was part of a government-appointed expert commission, which published their recommendations for a new social assistance system in May 2021. Claus Kreiner is part of a government-appointed expert commission on the design of a green tax reform to achieve the ambitious Danish goal of a 70% reduction in emissions by 2030. Pol Campos-Mercade participated in panel discussions organized by the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security on how to run experiments in social science and how to evaluate impact of social policy. Frederik Lyngse is part of the Expert Group for Mathematical Modelling of COVID-19 that advices the Danish government on the epidemic. Mette Gørtz organized a workshop on health behavior and health inequality together with the Danish Ministry of Health.

In the media

Work by CEBI members featured in the newspapers Berlingske Tidende, Børsen, Information, Politiken, Jyllandsposten, Weekendavisen, and even in Ekstrabladet. This includes extensive coverage of research by Asger Lau Andersen, Niels Johannesen, Mia Jørgensen and external CEBI member José-Luis Peydró in Børsen on April 7^th. The full front page of Børsen was devoted to this story and had the title (translated from Danish): “New Research: Low interest rates increase inequality.”

Initiatives for PhD students

Deputy Director Søren Leth-Petersen has weekly meetings with all CEBI PhD students. CEBI organized a PhD course on belief formation and a PhD course on using machine learning methods. Assistant professor at Zürich University, and former CEBI member, Anne Brenøe talked about her experiences as a junior researcher on the academic job market.

Conferences, workshops and seminars

CEBI members were involved in organizing eleven conferences/ workshops. CEBI organized a plenum session at the European Economic Association Congress on Inequality and Fairness: Lessons from Subjective and Objective Data; the Zeuthen lectures on Gender Inequality with external CEBI member Henrik Kleven from Princeton; the fourth CEPR conference on New Consumption Data; 23 seminars including speakers from Chicago, Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Yale and UCSD.