An article by Patricia Crifo and Ekaterina Ghosh in Polytechnique Insights – On July 6th, 2023
2023 France-Berkeley Fund: 2 recipients from the CREST
The France-Berkeley Fund
Established in 1993 as a partnership with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the France-Berkeley Fund (FBF) promotes and supports scholarly exchange in all disciplines between faculty and research scientists at the University of California and their counterparts in France.
Through its annual grant competition, the FBF provides seed money for innovative, bi-national collaborations. The Fund’s core mission is to advance research of the highest caliber, to foster interdisciplinary inquiry, to encourage new partnerships, and to promote lasting institutional and intellectual cooperation between France and the United States.
2023-2024 Call: 2 CREST recipients
For the 2023-2024 call, 2 projects have been submitted and are getting funded:
• Decentralizing divorces
A project developed by Matias Nunez (CREST, CNRS Research fellow) and his counterpart Federico Echenique, Professor of Economics and Social Sciences at UC Berkeley.
Abstract:
This project focuses on the development of practical applications of mechanism design, a branch of economics concerned with developing well-functioning institutions that ensure efficient and fair outcomes. In particular, we will focus on legal settings where two persons need to reach an agreement while their preferences are misaligned. Examples are dissolution of partnerships, allocation of rights and duties among conflicting agents, and divorces. While a judge, legal experts and lengthy bargaining procedures are often needed in practice, we plan to develop economic tools to appraise reasonable compromises, reducing both cost and time.
• Towards Local, Distribution-Free and Efficient Guarantees in Aggregation and Statistical Learning
A project developed by Jaouad Mourtada (CREST, ENSAE Paris) and his counterpart Nikita Zhivotovskiy, Assistant Professor in Statistics at UC Berkeley.
Description:
Statistical learning theory is dedicated to the analysis of procedures for learning based on data. The general aim is to understand what guarantees on the prediction accuracy can be obtained, under which conditions and by which procedures. It can inform the design of sound and robust methods, that can withstand corruption in the data or departure from an idealized posited model, without sacrificing accuracy or efficiency in more favorable situations. In particular, the problem of aggregation can be formulated as follows: given a class of predictors and a sample, form a new predictor that is guaranteed to have an accuracy approaching that of the best predictor within the class, up to an error that should be as small as possible.
This problem can be cast in several settings and has been investigated through various angles in Statistics and Computer Science. While the topic is classical, it has seen a renewed interest through (for instance) the recent direction of robust statistical learning, which raises the question of the most general conditions under which a good accuracy can be achieved. Despite important progress, several important and basic questions have remained unanswered in the literature, which we aim to study.
CREST Conference on Risk & Insurance, 14-15 september 2023
The objective of the conference is to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers, and research scholars to present and exchange their research results on economic and financial decisions under risk, insurance markets and related public policies. It will be also a tribute to Professor Pierre Picard, an outstanding researcher of the field, who is Emeritus Professor at École polytechnique since September 2021.
This conference is organized as a workshop, based on plenary sessions held at ENSAE (Sep. 14) and Maison internationale (Cité internationale de Paris, Sep. 15), each presentation (12 in total) being made by a leading scientist. Presentations will represent the diversity of research on economic and financial decisions under risk, insurance markets and related public policies. All presentations will be made by invited speakers.
Date: September 14 and 15, 2023.
Participation to the conference is free, but registration is required. Please, click here to register.
Program of the conference
| Thursday, September 14 (ENSAE)- Amphi 200 | Friday, September 15 (Cité Internationale) - Salon Gulbenkian - Preyer | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:45am to 10:30am | Reception of the participants (coffee) | 9am | Reception of the participants (coffee) |
| 9:30am to 12:30pm | Morning session - Risk Theory | ||
| Rachel J. Huang (National Central University, Taiwan), A Simple Approach for Measuring Higher-Order Risk Attitudes | |||
| 10:30am to 12:30pm | Morning Session - Contract Theory | Arthur Snow (University of Georgia), A Complete Characterization of Downside Risk Preference | |
| Jean-Charles Rochet (Toulouse School of Economics), "Money and Taxes Implement Optimal Dynamic Mechanisms" | Richard Peter (University of Iowa), The many faces of multivariate risk-taking: Risk apportionment for desirable and undesirable attributes | ||
| François Salanié (INRAE & TSE), Competitive Nonlinear Pricing under Adverse Selection | |||
| 12:30pm to 1:30pm | Lunch | 12:30pm to 1:30pm | Lunch |
| 1:30pm to 3:30pm | Afternoon Session 1 - Public Policies | 1:30pm to 3:30pm | Afternoon Session 1 - Empirical Insurance |
| Enrico Biffis (Imperial College, London) , Short-lived gasses, carbon markets and climate risk mitigation | Georges Dionne (HEC Montreal), Consolidation of the US property and casualty insurance industry: Is climate risk a causal factor for mergers and acquisitions? | ||
| Christian Gollier (Toulouse School of Economics), Stress Discounting | Kili Wang (Tamkang University, Taiwan), Collusion between Retailers and Customers: The Case of Insurance Fraud in Taiwan | ||
| 3:30pm to 4pm | Coffee break | 3:30pm to 4pm | Coffee break |
| 4pm to 6pm | Afternoon Session 2 - Insurance | 4pm to 5pm | Afternoon Session 2 - Insurance |
| Pierre-Yves Geoffard (Paris School of Economics), Road traffic accidents in France: compensation for body injury in France | Michael Hoy (University of Guelph), New Safety Technologies and Vehicle Safety | ||
| Claude Fluet (Université Laval), Consumer Protection in Retail Investments: Are Market Adjusted Damages Efficient? | |||
Beyond the PhD – Episode 1 – Léa Bou Sleiman & Martin Mugnier
CREST is introducing a new series of videos on the PhD theme. Léa Bou Sleiman & Martin Mugnier were interviewed for this first episode of “Beyond the PhD”. The 4th year economics PhD students present their career at CREST and their participation in the International Job Market.
CREST, a multidisciplinary laboratory
On June 19, 2023, CREST organized a day dedicated to doctoral students was held.
At this event, doctoral students from the 4 research divisions (economics, sociology, finance-insurance and statistics) were able to exchange ideas with their colleagues and present their areas of research.
Multidisciplinarity…
CREST favors an interdisciplinary approach to tackling complex issues. This synergy between different areas of expertise enriches research and provides innovative perspectives in a variety of fields such as the sociology of work, public economics, green finance, political economy, statistical analysis of networks and many others.
Thanks to this multidisciplinary approach, the CREST laboratory fosters fruitful collaborations between researchers from different backgrounds, encouraging the emergence of innovative solutions to contemporary societal challenges.
Fields of research by division
… At all levels
CREST maintains a wide range of academic and industrial partnerships beyond its core themes. These enriching interdisciplinary collaborations help to provide innovative solutions and tackle complex challenges in a wide range of sectors. CREST works with financial institutions (Caisse des dépôts et consignation, La Banque Postale Asset Management, HSBC AM) and public institutions (Ile de France region) to examine the determinants and impacts of integrating environmental, social and governance issues into investment decisions or to assess their climate and sustainable finance action plans (City of Paris, Ile de France region).
These interdisciplinary partnerships demonstrate CREST’s commitment to tackling contemporary challenges by mobilizing a wide range of knowledge and expertise.
Doctoral studies at CREST
Working in the CREST laboratory, doctoral students benefit from a stimulating environment, conducive to the exchange ideas and collaboration with researchers from a variety of backgrounds. This diversity of approaches fosters the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills and enables doctoral students to develop a holistic vision of their field of study, strengthening their ability to conduct innovative research and meet the challenges of tomorrow.
2023 France-Berkeley Fund: 2 CREST recipients
The France-Berkeley Fund
Established in 1993 as a partnership with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the France-Berkeley Fund (FBF) promotes and supports scholarly exchange in all disciplines between faculty and research scientists at the University of California and their counterparts in France.
Through its annual grant competition, the FBF provides seed money for innovative, bi-national collaborations. The Fund’s core mission is to advance research of the highest caliber, to foster interdisciplinary inquiry, to encourage new partnerships, and to promote lasting institutional and intellectual cooperation between France and the United States.
2023-2024 Call: 2 CREST recipients
For the 2023-2024 call, 2 projects have been submitted and are getting funded:
• Decentralizing divorces
A project developed by Matias Nunez (CREST, CNRS Research fellow) and his counterpart Federico Echenique, Professor of Economics and Social Sciences at UC Berkeley.
Abstract:
This project focuses on the development of practical applications of mechanism design, a branch of economics concerned with developing well-functioning institutions that ensure efficient and fair outcomes. In particular, we will focus on legal settings where two persons need to reach an agreement while their preferences are misaligned. Examples are dissolution of partnerships, allocation of rights and duties among conflicting agents, and divorces. While a judge, legal experts and lengthy bargaining procedures are often needed in practice, we plan to develop economic tools to appraise reasonable compromises, reducing both cost and time.
• Towards Local, Distribution-Free and Efficient Guarantees in Aggregation and Statistical Learning
A project developed by Jaouad Mourtada (CREST, ENSAE Paris) and his counterpart Nikita Zhivotovskiy, Assistant Professor in Statistics at UC Berkeley.
Description:
Statistical learning theory is dedicated to the analysis of procedures for learning based on data. The general aim is to understand what guarantees on the prediction accuracy can be obtained, under which conditions and by which procedures. It can inform the design of sound and robust methods, that can withstand corruption in the data or departure from an idealized posited model, without sacrificing accuracy or efficiency in more favorable situations. In particular, the problem of aggregation can be formulated as follows: given a class of predictors and a sample, form a new predictor that is guaranteed to have an accuracy approaching that of the best predictor within the class, up to an error that should be as small as possible.
This problem can be cast in several settings and has been investigated through various angles in Statistics and Computer Science. While the topic is classical, it has seen a renewed interest through (for instance) the recent direction of robust statistical learning, which raises the question of the most general conditions under which a good accuracy can be achieved. Despite important progress, several important and basic questions have remained unanswered in the literature, which we aim to study.
CREST, a multidisciplinary laboratory
On June 19, 2023, CREST organized a day dedicated to doctoral students was held.
At this event, doctoral students from the 4 research divisions (economics, sociology, finance-insurance and statistics) were able to exchange ideas with their colleagues and present their areas of research.
Multidisciplinarity…
CREST favors an interdisciplinary approach to tackling complex issues. This synergy between different areas of expertise enriches research and provides innovative perspectives in a variety of fields such as the sociology of work, public economics, green finance, political economy, statistical analysis of networks and many others.
Thanks to this multidisciplinary approach, the CREST laboratory fosters fruitful collaborations between researchers from different backgrounds, encouraging the emergence of innovative solutions to contemporary societal challenges
Fields of research by division
… At all levels
CREST maintains a wide range of academic and industrial partnerships beyond its core themes. These enriching interdisciplinary collaborations help to provide innovative solutions and tackle complex challenges in a wide range of sectors. CREST works with financial institutions (Caisse des dépôts et consignation, La Banque Postale Asset Management, HSBC AM) and public institutions (Ile de France region) to examine the determinants and impacts of integrating environmental, social and governance issues into investment decisions or to assess their climate and sustainable finance action plans (City of Paris, Ile de France region).
These interdisciplinary partnerships demonstrate CREST’s commitment to tackling contemporary challenges by mobilizing a wide range of knowledge and expertise.
Doctoral studies at CREST
Working in the CREST laboratory, doctoral students benefit from a stimulating environment, conducive to the exchange ideas and collaboration with researchers from a variety of backgrounds. This diversity of approaches fosters the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills and enables doctoral students to develop a holistic vision of their field of study, strengthening their ability to conduct innovative research and meet the challenges of tomorrow.
EVENTS: CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS
| Oct. 19-20th |
18th IZA & 5th IZA/CREST Conference: Labor Market Policy Evaluation Paris, Palaiseau
Organizers: Marco Caliendo (University of Potsdam and IZA), Bruno Crépon (CREST and IZA), Xavier D’Haultfoeuille (CREST), Arne Uhlendorff (CREST and IZA), Gerard J. van den Berg (University of Groningen and IZA) |
| Oct. 19-20th |
Colloque retraite & vieillissement 2023
Du Jeudi 19 octobre 2023 au Vendredi 20 octobre 2023 https://politiques-sociales.caissedesdepots.fr/colloque-retraite-vieillissement-2023#section8625-1 |
| Oct. 27-28th | Tokenomics 2023 – 5th International Conference on Blockchain Economics, Security and Protocols
Columbia University, Davis Auditorium |
| Oct. 30th | Autumn school in Bayesian Statistics 2023
30th October – 3rd November 2023, CIRM Marseille Master classes by Nicolas Chopin and Silvia Chiappa The objective of this autumn school is to provide a comprehensive overview of Bayesian methods for complex settings: modelling techniques, computational advances, theoretical guarantees and practical implementation. It will include two masterclasses, on Sequential Monte Carlo and on Bayesian causal inference, tutorials on NIMBLE and on Bayesian Statistics with Python, and a selection of invited and contributed talks. |
| Oct. 30-31st | International Conference: “Skills for the Future: Navigating the Digital, Green, and Social Transitions in European Labour Markets”
Organizers: Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and co-funded by Luxembourg’s National Research Fund (FNR). This conference marks the first international conference of the ELMI Network (Network of European Labour Market Research Institutes) initiated in October 2022 by the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Researcher (LISER) and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). The network is currently composed of 11 research institutes from all over Europe to facilitate the international exchange of best practices, ideas and people. It promotes multi-disciplinary research collaborations, especially at the EU level, and the exchange of best practices in data management, data access and discussions with policy-makers and stakeholders. More information on ELMI Network: https://www.elmi-network.eu |
Beyond the PhD – Episode 1 – Léa Bou Sleiman & Martin Mugnier
CREST is introducing a new series of videos on the PhD theme. Léa Bou Sleiman & Martin Mugnier were interviewed for this first episode of “Beyond the PhD”. The 4th year economics PhD students present their career at CREST and their participation in the International Job Market.
“Les cryptomonnaies par-delà le buzz … Formidable invention ou danger public ?”
Dans Le Journal du CNRS, Julien Prat, économiste au CREST, responsable de la chaire académique Blockchain@X de l’École polytechnique, répond aux questions de Salomé Tissolong.