Project description
Understanding the societal impact of diversification
Diversification is a strategy used by investors and manufacturers to mitigate economic risks associated with potential failures. However, the broader societal implications of low-cost diversification remain unclear. The ERC-funded DICACO project will investigate the causes, effects, and welfare implications of diversification, focusing on its impact on investors, consumers, and taxpayers. It will examine whether the benefits of diversification for individual investors extend to the broader market and whether these motives promote common ownership among competing firms. The project will analyse how diversified ownership affects bidding behaviour in government procurement auctions, potentially leading to inefficient transfers of taxpayer money to shareholders. It will also develop new asset pricing methods and create a comprehensive open-source dataset on corporate ownership.
Objective
DICACO analyses causes, consequences, and welfare effects of diversification, once equilibrium effects that affect investor welfare and side effects that affect consumers and taxpayers are considered. The analysis informs the question:
Is cheap diversification good for society?
Sub-projects investigate
(i) Theory: whether benefits of diversification that accrue to individual investors viewed in isolation also benefit investors in equilibrium, once effects on asset prices are considered;
(ii) Empirics: to which extent diversification motives drive “common ownership” of product market competitors;
(iii) Theory and empirics: whether bidding behavior in government procurement auctions depends on whether bidders are owned by diversified investors, how much taxpayer money is inefficiently transferred to shareholders as a result, and how procurement auctions could be redesigned to re-claim efficiency losses caused by diversified ownership of bidders;
(iv) Theory: how predictions on portfolio choice, equilibrium ownership, asset prices, firm behavior, and product prices depend on jointly endogenizing all these variables, and how this equilibrium depends on the implementation of policy proposals that seek to restrict investor diversification.
We use tools from general equilibrium theory and numerical computer simulations in (i) & (iv); machine learning and reduced-form econometrics in (ii); auction theory and structural estimation in (iii).
The project develops new methods to solve equilibrium asset pricing models and for auction theory. The uniquely comprehensive dataset on corporate ownership will be open sourced for academic research worldwide.
Because of the potential to shift beliefs, the provision of new tools for academic research, and because policy makers might erase trillions of Euros of economic gains by enacting the wrong policies, overall, the risks of the project are justified by the high gains for both researchers and policymakers.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.