Aurélien Baillon, professor in behavioural economics at Erasmus School of Economics, has obtained a Starting Grant of 1.5 million euros from the European Research Council (ERC).
With the Starting Grants the ERC aims to support up-and-coming research leaders who are about to establish their own independent research team. Prof. Baillon will use the grant for a project of 5 years involving two post-doc researchers and two doctoral students, under his leadership.
The project, entitled “Bayesian markets for unverifiable truths” will develop a new approach to get correct answers to questions that are otherwise unverifiable, e.g. concerning one’s happiness or the estimated likelihood of dramatic fatal events. As such the results of the project have a potential beyond economics, in a broad range of social sciences.
The ERC jury confirmed this potential in its conclusion: “This creative research project is novel and compelling. It is very ambitious, but well articulated. It has the potential to have an important impact across all social sciences. Consequently, the proposed research has a high upside, especially if the methodology – which is completely appropriate and very carefully thought out – can be rolled out for large surveys as well”.
About ERC Grants
ERC grants are among the most prestigious grants in the world. In the panel where prof. Baillon competed (called “Markets, Individuals and Institutions”, the typical panel for researchers in economics and management) he is only the second researcher from a Dutch university to receive a Starting Grant since the initiation of the ERC in 2007. Andrew Fischer of ISS received a grant in December last year.
Professor Huibert Pols, Rector Magnificus of Erasmus University Rotterdam, is very excited about prof. Baillon’s achievement: “Since his arrival in 2007 Aurélien has become an important asset in the Behavioural Economics group, one of the strongest research groups at our university. This ERC grant confirms the international recognition for the prominence of Erasmus School of Economics in this area. It also adds very persuasive further evidence of Aurélien’s exceptional talent to his already impressive academic track-record.”
About Aurélien Baillon
Prof. Baillon (1980) joined Erasmus School of Economics in 2007, after obtaining a research master at the University of Toulouse and a Ph.D. at the Paris Institute of Technology. In the past years he received other important recognition for his research contributions, including a Veni and a Vidi grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (N.W.O.). His research has been published in leading journals, including the American Economic Review.
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Ronald de Groot, communication officer at Erasmus School of Economics: E rdegroot@ese.eur.nl or T 06 53 641 846.