Currently I am working or planning to work in the following research projects. Projects are regrouping several analyses and can include a series of papers.
This project aims at analyzing the intergenerational links in education between parents and their children. Particularly in Latin America these links are very strong, making it very difficult for children with little educated parents to achieve a good education. As a consequence, social mobility is low and inequality of opportunity high. Inequality of opportunity is defined as being the part of inequality that is due to circumstances beyond the control of the individual. It is therefore the part of inequality that is socially unacceptable. This projects also aims at contributing to the measurement of inequality of opportunity and to increase the number of empirical applications of the methods for Latin American Countries.
The access to credit is generally seen as an important ingredient for development. However, problems of inappropriate use of credits and resulting credit traps might occur. The goal of this project is to understand why people sometimes contract excessive debt and what policy measures could reduce the negative effects.
Economic modeling is essentially dominated by mathematical models with analytical solutions. Unlike in other disciplines, the use of computer based simulations is relatively scarce. However, agent-based modeling techniques allow economists to model much closer to the real world. The aim of this research project is to promote the use of agent-based modeling techniques in a variety of topics in economics.