Five LISER projects retained for funding!

Thematics covered include: perceived housing wealth, sustainable finance, primary care and more.

LISER is pleased to communicate that the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) has awarded LISER three CORE research projects, a RESCOM lecture series and a PSP ( in collaboration with ASTI) which promotes science to the public.

The retained projects are:

Are People Aware of their (Housing) Wealth? Assessing Owner-Estimated Home Values in Survey and Experimental Data (ASSESS)

CORE Project Summary:  
Housing wealth is a big issue. Big in terms of the number of people concerned: seven out of ten people in the EU live in a home they own. Big in terms of money: people’s housing wealth amounts to more than EUR 32 trillion in the euro area. And big in relative terms: more than 80% of the total euro area household wealth is real estate. However, do homeowners have an accurate picture of their wealth? If not, what are the reasons for this? Moreover, what are the consequences of the common use of homeowners’ own estimates, with regard to research, monitoring a country’s financial stability, and policymaking?

The ASSESS project will examine whether perceived housing wealth differs from ‘true’ values inferred from actual market prices, and will also investigate the consequence of treating subjective data as if it was objective. The project will also contribute to finding a better measurement of housing wealth and its distribution within society. Better data is a pre-requisite for discussing wealth inequality, and monitoring the financial vulnerability of households and the financial system as a whole.

Duration:
34 months

Main LISER researchers:
Sofie Waltl (Principal Investigator)
Daniele Nosenzo
Francesco Fallucchi
Research assistants (to be recruited)

External researchers:
Michael Ziegelmeyer, Central Bank of Luxembourg

Mentor: 
Sumit Agarwal, University of Singapore

Regional approaches towards alternative economies and sustainable finance (AltFin)

CORE Project summary:
AltFin seeks to better understand regional economic development at the interface of alternative economy approaches, here circular economy (CE), and sustainable finance, in order to comprehend mechanisms that will guide regional transitions towards sustainable development.

Fundamentally, transitions as directed, yet open ended, social processes require institutions to adapt and change. Thus, AltFin scrutinises in particular regional institutions in the three neighbouring countries France, Germany and Luxembourg, where national and regional initiatives have started to support CE endeavours. CE is indeed a prominent example of broader alternative economy approaches with particular – long-term – financing needs. At the same time, powerful financial firms, mainly embedded in international financial centres (IFCs) to serve global circuits of capital, have started to shift parts of their business towards sustainable finance. For example, large investment funds seek to invest in projects and assets that not only generate financial returns but also ecological and/or social benefits (impact investing). CE is an area that potentially matches these investment criteria, but, so far, the majority of financial firms anchored in IFCs invest much more on a global than on a national/regional level. Further, finance is a powerful player and may promote change in a different direction than that intended by CE agents. The proposed project builds on preliminary evidence from Luxembourg that although there is strong demand for financing CE projects on a national level, financial firms in Luxembourg’s IFC – which has heavily specialised in green bonds and green investment funds – primarily invest in extra-European regions and, there, mainly in climate finance projects.

We hypothesise that one reason for this organisational, financial and geographical mismatch is a corresponding mismatch in Luxembourg’s institutions that are currently unable to (re-)align local finance needs in regional alternative economic projects with global finance supply in IFCs. We seek to investigate empirically in a comparative manner the power induced relationships between sustainable finance designed in the IFCs Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Paris, and alternative economic activities in the three regional economies. Ultimately, AltFin seeks to develop a new framework of institutional change and its key mechanisms and practices at the interface of sustainable finance and alternative economies to strengthen regional economies and their sustainable development.

Duration:
36 months

Main LISER researchers:
Sabine Dörry (Co-Principal Investigator)
NN (PhD researcher)

External researchers:
Christian Schulz, University of Luxembourg (Co-Principal Investigator)

Assessment of Primary Care Performance in Luxembourg (APPEAL) 

CORE Project summary: 
This project, undertaken jointly by LISER and LIH (Luxembourg Institute of Health) will investigate the performance of primary care in Luxembourg in the context of other European countries. Primary care plays an important role in managing health problems, promoting health and preventing illness. Studies have suggested that primary care in Luxembourg could be improved. We compare Luxembourg to other European countries to examine if there is scope to improve primary care using existing resources. We investigate whether hospital admissions for conditions treatable in primary care could be reduced, without increasing the number of general practitioners (GPs). We explore why there are differences across countries in the number of GP consultations and hospital admissions for conditions treatable in primary care, and if differences indicate scope for improvement in Luxembourg. We plan to rigorously evaluate a distinct primary care policy introduced in Luxembourg to improve care coordination for patients, particularly those with chronic or long-term illnesses. By undertaking a comprehensive performance assessment of primary care in Luxembourg, this project addresses an important research gap identified by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR).

Duration:
36 months

Main LISER researchers:
Valerie Moran (Principal Investigator), joint appointment with LIH
Michela Bia
Patrick Thill

Main LIH researchers:
Valéry Bocquet
Aljosa Celebic

Local Scientific Advisors:
Prof. Marc Suhrcke (LISER)
Prof Laetitia Huiart (LIH)

Mentor:
Prof Ellen Nolte, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

LISER Research Seminar Series (RSS)

RESCOM Project Summary:
The LISER RSS’s primary objective is to stimulate debate about frontier research on topics that are relevant for LISER and the national scientific landscape. The series will consist of 30 seminars throughout calendar year 2020. During each event, one internationally recognized guest speaker will deliver a 90-minute talk about a recent unpublished research project on topics that are of key relevance for LISER departments.

Topics of RSS cover broad domains of public economics, analysis of inequality and its consequences, labour economics, migration, urban economics and planning, borders integration and cross-border mobility, and health. These topics are relevant to LISER researchers and a range of other national research actors, including the University of Luxembourg. RSS speakers have been selected based on their academic excellence, publication record, involvement in international projects, and membership to editorial boards of international scientific journals.

Duration:
12 months, 1 Jan 2020-31 Dec 2020

Main LISER researchers:
Aline Muller (Principal Investigator)
Geoffrey Caruso
Peter Shirley
Joël Machado
Antoine Paccoud
Konstantinos Tatsiramos
Philippe Van Kerm

Recherche, Opinions, Décisions – Cycle de débats interactifs sur le thème « Vivre, Travailler et Décider Ensemble » 

Ce projet PSP porté par l’ASTI et le LISER, a pour objectif d’accroître la visibilité des recherches scientifiques menées sur les thématiques de l’immigration et des travailleurs frontaliers au Luxembourg et dans les pays voisins.

Au total, 18 évènements (1 conférence de prestige, 12 conférences-débats, 4 conférences de presses et 1 workshop scientifique) sont prévus en vue d’informer les acteurs de terrain, les décideurs publics et l’opinion publique sur les enjeux liés à l’intégration sociale, économique et politique des immigrés et des frontaliers. A l’ère des evidence-based policies, ces évènements contribueront à stimuler les interactions entre les acteurs concernés et les échanges de points de vue. Les acteurs scientifiques présenteront les méthodes utilisées, les principaux apports des recherches récentes (i.e., les principaux points de consensus et de divergence de la littérature), leurs limites.et zones d’ombre. Pour chaque session a été invité un intervenant académique spécialisé dans la thématique et reconnu nationalement ou internationalement pour ses travaux. Les décideurs feront part de leur vision de la réalité de terrain et de leur difficulté à interagir avec le monde scientifique. Ces échanges seront illustrés par témoignages de la société civile. Lors de chaque évènement, des activités sont proposées pour mesurer l’influence des débats sur les perceptions et sur la prise de décision. Ce projet est destiné à contribuer à initier un changement de culture dans la définition des priorités et dans la conduite de l’agenda politique.

Consultez le calendrier d’événements

Duration: 14 months,  Nov 2019- Dec 2020

Main LISER researchers: Frédéric Docquier