Collaborative Research Center Transregio 224 - EPoS

In the first pillar of the CRC, we investigate how private and public institutions shape the formation of preferences and the acquisition of skills. At the heart of this research are family and education policies. In particular, we analyze policies that are conducive to equality of opportunity by making skills, as well as life outcomes, depend less on factors such as gender and socioeconomic background. (Photo: r.classen/www.colourbox.de)

In the second pillar of the CRC, we address problems of market regulation, taking account of insights into skill and preference formation from the first pillar. The internationalization and digitalization of markets pose new challenges for market design and regulation, especially in view of policy objectives such as consumer protection or the mitigation of environmental damage. Analyzing forms of economic exchange that have become especially important with the rise of the internet and cross-border trade, we ask how regulatory policies should address the market power, externalities, informational asymmetries, and commitment problems that characterize these environments. At the heart of this research is product market regulation broadly conceived—including consumer protection policy, competition policy, trade policy, and environmental policy. (Photo: www.colourbox.de)

Using insights from the first two pillars of the CRC, we study, in the third pillar, the interplay among individual financial decision-making, aggregate financial market outcomes, and policy interventions in financial markets. We scrutinize the effectiveness of recently implemented or suggested interventions and ask, in particular, how they affect the distribution of wealth. At the heart of this pillar are policies aimed at safeguarding the stability of the financial system and, thereby, the economy as a whole. By explicitly taking account of the effects on the wealth distribution, the results from the third pillar feed back into the core issue of the first pillar—equality of opportunity. (Photo: www.colourbox.de)