research
Manuel García-Santana obtains ERC Consolidator Grant
A five-year Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council will provide nearly 1.5 million euros for Professor García-Santana's study of the complex interactions between public contracts, company decisions, and the economy at large.
Government Intervention and Macroeconomy: Microevidence on Transmission of Government Procurement
Manuel García-Santana (UPF and BSE - currently on leave at the World Bank)
Governments can spend between 10% and 20% of GDP on public procurement, depending on the country and the year. The aim of Professor García-Santana's ERC Consolidator project is to explore how this spending influences companies and the economy as a whole.
To do this, he will merge data from company balance sheets and firm-to-firm transactions with new data that he will collect on millions of public contracts awarded in many different countries.
Some of the questions García-Santana will investigate are:
- What are the productivity and welfare costs when governments are biased toward local firms when they award public contracts?
- What are the effects on firm dynamics when there is corruption in procurement processes?
- Which factors affect the prices that governments pay for goods and services, and how does this impact consumer welfare?
A total of five new ERC grants were awarded to BSE Affiliated Professors in 2023
In addition to Professor García-Santana, two more BSE professors were awarded ERC Consolidator Grants, which support excellent scientists with 7-12 years of experience since completing their PhDs:
- Ruben Durante (ICREA-UPF and BSE - currently on leave at the National University of Singapore)
"Political Polarization: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions" - Joan Llull (IAE-CSIC and BSE)
"Optimal Immigration Policy"
Two others were awarded ERC Starting Grants for promising researchers with 2-7 years of experience since completion of their PhDs:
- Dmitry Kuvshinov (UPF and BSE)
"Safety, Liquidity, and Crises" - Katerina Petrova (UPF and BSE - currently on leave at the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
"Uniform Inference with Time Series"
Browse all European Research Council grants in the BSE community