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Project acronym dasQ
Project Atomic-Scale Dynamics of Quantum Materials
Researcher (PI) Sebastian Loth
Host Institution (HI) MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE3, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Quantum materials exhibit strong electron-electron interaction, which gives rise to such remarkable phenomena as high temperature superconductivity and colossal magnetoresistance. These materials mark one of the frontiers of modern condensed matter physics: a new class of solids where many-body physics dominates. By understanding quantum materials a new generation of devices may become available, greatly boosting our ability to handle information or harvest energy. A key difficulty is that correlated-electron materials present inherent complexity on multiple length and timescales, with static and dynamic inhomogeneities that determine cooperativity and the emergence of collective behavior. The goal of the dasQ proposal is to resolve the microscopic dynamics of quantum materials in the presence of atomic scale heterogeneity. Ultrafast pump probe spectroscopy at THz wavelength will be combined with scanning tunneling microscopy. Strong enhancement of THz radiation in the STM's tunnel junction enables simultaneous atomic spatial resolution and picosecond time resolution. We will explore methods to control charge order locally by tip interaction, atom manipulation and coherent driving with THz fields. Atomically-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy will quantify nanometer-sized variations in quasiparticle lifetimes across inhomogeneous phases. Furthermore, the microscopic mechanism of charge density wave capture at singular pinning sites will be addressed. These experiments will impact many aspects of correlated-electron materials; one of the stated goals is to resolve how cooper pairing is modified locally when charge order competes with superconductivity. The success of the dasQ project will create new experiments that interact with many-body phases at the intrinsic length scale of charge correlation and will identify opportunities for scaling of electronic devices using quantum materials.
Quantum materials exhibit strong electron-electron interaction, which gives rise to such remarkable phenomena as high temperature superconductivity and colossal magnetoresistance. These materials mark one of the frontiers of modern condensed matter physics: a new class of solids where many-body physics dominates. By understanding quantum materials a new generation of devices may become available, greatly boosting our ability to handle information or harvest energy. A key difficulty is that correlated-electron materials present inherent complexity on multiple length and timescales, with static and dynamic inhomogeneities that determine cooperativity and the emergence of collective behavior. The goal of the dasQ proposal is to resolve the microscopic dynamics of quantum materials in the presence of atomic scale heterogeneity. Ultrafast pump probe spectroscopy at THz wavelength will be combined with scanning tunneling microscopy. Strong enhancement of THz radiation in the STM's tunnel junction enables simultaneous atomic spatial resolution and picosecond time resolution. We will explore methods to control charge order locally by tip interaction, atom manipulation and coherent driving with THz fields. Atomically-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy will quantify nanometer-sized variations in quasiparticle lifetimes across inhomogeneous phases. Furthermore, the microscopic mechanism of charge density wave capture at singular pinning sites will be addressed. These experiments will impact many aspects of correlated-electron materials; one of the stated goals is to resolve how cooper pairing is modified locally when charge order competes with superconductivity. The success of the dasQ project will create new experiments that interact with many-body phases at the intrinsic length scale of charge correlation and will identify opportunities for scaling of electronic devices using quantum materials.
Project acronym Dynamic Nano
Project Dynamic Nanoplasmonics
Researcher (PI) Na Liu
Summary The key component of nanoplasmonics is metals. When metal nanoparticles are placed in close proximity, the possibility of shaping and controlling near-field and far-field optical properties expands enormously. Near-field coupling between metal nanoparticles is extremely sensitive to nanometer conformational changes. Such strong dependence on conformation provides unique opportunities in manipulating optical response on the nanoscale. Simultaneously, it also raises significant challenges in realization of dynamic plasmonic systems, which can exhibit immediate conformational changes upon a regulated physical or chemical control input. Also importantly, plasmonic nanostructures can serve as an efficient far-field to near-field transformer, converting optical radiation into strong localized electromagnetic fields. This unprecedented ability enables probing local dynamic changes on the nanoscale that are extremely crucial in nanocatalysis and phase transitions of nanomaterials, where many unanswered questions abound. In my proposal, I would like to develop a new generation of dynamic nanoplasmonic building blocks for biology, chemistry, and materials science. These plasmonic building blocks either can exhibit dynamic structural changes themselves or can be integrated with functional materials, where dynamic events take place. I will utilize both bottom-up and top-down nanotechniques to advance the perspective of plasmonics towards synthetic plasmonic machinery as well as on-chip dynamic plasmonic devices with both tailored optical response and active functionality. With such plasmonic building blocks, long-standing questions in protein dynamics, chiral sensing, dynamic light matter interaction, gas-phase catalysis, and phase transitions on the nanoscale will be addressed. My proposed methods will allow for unprecedented resolution on optically disseminating dynamic behavior and revolutionary multidisciplinary experiments that were not possible to perform before.
The key component of nanoplasmonics is metals. When metal nanoparticles are placed in close proximity, the possibility of shaping and controlling near-field and far-field optical properties expands enormously. Near-field coupling between metal nanoparticles is extremely sensitive to nanometer conformational changes. Such strong dependence on conformation provides unique opportunities in manipulating optical response on the nanoscale. Simultaneously, it also raises significant challenges in realization of dynamic plasmonic systems, which can exhibit immediate conformational changes upon a regulated physical or chemical control input. Also importantly, plasmonic nanostructures can serve as an efficient far-field to near-field transformer, converting optical radiation into strong localized electromagnetic fields. This unprecedented ability enables probing local dynamic changes on the nanoscale that are extremely crucial in nanocatalysis and phase transitions of nanomaterials, where many unanswered questions abound. In my proposal, I would like to develop a new generation of dynamic nanoplasmonic building blocks for biology, chemistry, and materials science. These plasmonic building blocks either can exhibit dynamic structural changes themselves or can be integrated with functional materials, where dynamic events take place. I will utilize both bottom-up and top-down nanotechniques to advance the perspective of plasmonics towards synthetic plasmonic machinery as well as on-chip dynamic plasmonic devices with both tailored optical response and active functionality. With such plasmonic building blocks, long-standing questions in protein dynamics, chiral sensing, dynamic light matter interaction, gas-phase catalysis, and phase transitions on the nanoscale will be addressed. My proposed methods will allow for unprecedented resolution on optically disseminating dynamic behavior and revolutionary multidisciplinary experiments that were not possible to perform before.
Project acronym ENHANCEDQMMR
Project Enhanced Qualitative and Multi-Method Research in Political Science
Researcher (PI) Ingo Rohlfing
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAET ZU KOELN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Over the last 20 years, qualitative methods in political science have developed rapidly on three dimen-sions. First, set theory was formulated as an alternative to what is called the quantitative worldview. Second, process tracing for the analysis of mechanisms evolved as a complement to the estimation of marginal effects. Process tracing has also been tied to Bayesianism as opposed to frequentism. Third, process tracing became an element of multi-method research (MMR), integrating it with frequentist statistics or Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). An important element of the development of qualitative methods is its contrast with quantitative methods. At the same time, quantitative researchers critically commented on that development. The constant exchange has contributed to the progress of qualitative methods, but the debate has reached an impasse in some respects, or has pursued one line of development while neglecting others. Building on state-of-the-art qualitative methods, ENHANCEDQMMR seeks to overcome this impasse and to explore new ground.It makes four significant contributions to the progress of standalone qualitative methods and as part of MMR. First, it examines experimentally how researchers decide between a set-relational and correlational view on causation and whether they can realize designs in accord with their initial decision. Second, it develops tools for sensitivity analyses, diagnostics, and the modeling of diverse data structures via QCA for strengthening QCA-based inference. Third, it com-pares the performance of QCA and regression analyses under simulated data-generating processes with the goal of generating comparative diagnostics, possibly allowing one to adjudicate between both methods in observational research. Fourth, it formulates standards for Bayesian MMR by combining Bayesian process tracing with Bayesian statistics and Bayesian QCA, respectively. The insights of the project will be implemented in freely available software.
Over the last 20 years, qualitative methods in political science have developed rapidly on three dimen-sions. First, set theory was formulated as an alternative to what is called the quantitative worldview. Second, process tracing for the analysis of mechanisms evolved as a complement to the estimation of marginal effects. Process tracing has also been tied to Bayesianism as opposed to frequentism. Third, process tracing became an element of multi-method research (MMR), integrating it with frequentist statistics or Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). An important element of the development of qualitative methods is its contrast with quantitative methods. At the same time, quantitative researchers critically commented on that development. The constant exchange has contributed to the progress of qualitative methods, but the debate has reached an impasse in some respects, or has pursued one line of development while neglecting others. Building on state-of-the-art qualitative methods, ENHANCEDQMMR seeks to overcome this impasse and to explore new ground.It makes four significant contributions to the progress of standalone qualitative methods and as part of MMR. First, it examines experimentally how researchers decide between a set-relational and correlational view on causation and whether they can realize designs in accord with their initial decision. Second, it develops tools for sensitivity analyses, diagnostics, and the modeling of diverse data structures via QCA for strengthening QCA-based inference. Third, it com-pares the performance of QCA and regression analyses under simulated data-generating processes with the goal of generating comparative diagnostics, possibly allowing one to adjudicate between both methods in observational research. Fourth, it formulates standards for Bayesian MMR by combining Bayesian process tracing with Bayesian statistics and Bayesian QCA, respectively. The insights of the project will be implemented in freely available software.
Project acronym Highland Connections
Project Remoteness and Connectivity: Highland Asia in the World
Researcher (PI) Martin Johannes Saxer
Summary Asian highlands from the Afghan Pamir to Kashmir, Tibet and Northeast India are of great geopolitical concern. Remote, yet thoroughly connected to the outside world, they figure in public debate alternately as sanctuaries for transnational insurgents, as trafficking routes in the global drug and wildlife trade, and as realms of authentic tribal culture. Though making headlines around the globe as independent cases, we lack a conceptual understanding of their entanglements, role and position in a globally connected world. The aim of this project is to lay the conceptual groundwork for a new apprehension of the positionality of remote areas around the globe. It rests on the hypothesis that remoteness and connectivity are not two independent features but constitute each other in particular ways. My objective is to explore the nexus of remoteness and connectivity – a fundamental dynamic that has never been studied from a comparative, transnational perspective. Highland Asia, the chosen study area spanning the mountain regions between Pamir and Eastern Himalaya, transcends the boundaries of nation-states and area studies. It offers a unique vantage point to reveal a bigger picture. The project is timely. 25 years after the end of the Cold War, Highland Asia experiences a rapid increase in transnational exchange. Old trade routes closed for generations are being re-opened and the quest for natural resources and new markets attracts capital and new actors to the highlands. The hotspots of tension at the edge of Asia's rising powers are becoming junctures of exchange. The project studies this ongoing but little understood transformation in real time. The project will be carried out by an international team of four researchers at LMU Munich. Interdisciplinary in outlook but grounded in anthropology, 52 months of fieldwork will be conducted in 4 transnational settings in Highland Asia. Results will be published in 2 edited collections, 20 papers, and individual monographs.
Asian highlands from the Afghan Pamir to Kashmir, Tibet and Northeast India are of great geopolitical concern. Remote, yet thoroughly connected to the outside world, they figure in public debate alternately as sanctuaries for transnational insurgents, as trafficking routes in the global drug and wildlife trade, and as realms of authentic tribal culture. Though making headlines around the globe as independent cases, we lack a conceptual understanding of their entanglements, role and position in a globally connected world. The aim of this project is to lay the conceptual groundwork for a new apprehension of the positionality of remote areas around the globe. It rests on the hypothesis that remoteness and connectivity are not two independent features but constitute each other in particular ways. My objective is to explore the nexus of remoteness and connectivity – a fundamental dynamic that has never been studied from a comparative, transnational perspective. Highland Asia, the chosen study area spanning the mountain regions between Pamir and Eastern Himalaya, transcends the boundaries of nation-states and area studies. It offers a unique vantage point to reveal a bigger picture. The project is timely. 25 years after the end of the Cold War, Highland Asia experiences a rapid increase in transnational exchange. Old trade routes closed for generations are being re-opened and the quest for natural resources and new markets attracts capital and new actors to the highlands. The hotspots of tension at the edge of Asia's rising powers are becoming junctures of exchange. The project studies this ongoing but little understood transformation in real time. The project will be carried out by an international team of four researchers at LMU Munich. Interdisciplinary in outlook but grounded in anthropology, 52 months of fieldwork will be conducted in 4 transnational settings in Highland Asia. Results will be published in 2 edited collections, 20 papers, and individual monographs.
Project acronym InfoAggregation
Project Information Aggregation in Elections
Researcher (PI) Stephan Lauermann
Host Institution (HI) RHEINISCHE FRIEDRICH-WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAT BONN
Summary Elections are the foundation for democratic decision making. This research program will examine the effects of biased and privately informed entities—election organizers—on the ability of elections to aggregate information: Existing theory demonstrates that large electorates can reach correct decisions by aggregating information dispersed among many voters. However, existing theory does not account for the ubiquitous presence of biased organizers who intend to affect the election outcome. Examples of biased organizers may include a CEO holding a shareholder vote, a regional government holding a referendum, and political parties in general elections. This project will develop and analyze new models of voting that account for the effects of biased organizers on information aggregation. One of the examples I consider is an election organizer who can increase voter participation at some cost (e.g., through advertising). Preliminary work suggests that the presence of biased organizers has significant impact. As increasing participation becomes cheap, equilibria exist where the election organizer recruits a large number voters and yet the majority votes almost surely for the organizer's favorite policy. This failure of information aggregation contrasts starkly with existing results for elections in which the number of voters is exogenously large. I will study the effectiveness of institutional safeguards against such manipulation, including supermajority rules, publicity requirements, and the regulation of communication to voters, and I will apply the theory in the context of shareholder voting and corporate control. Thus, this research program has important implications for the design of elections in realistic voting scenarios.
Elections are the foundation for democratic decision making. This research program will examine the effects of biased and privately informed entities—election organizers—on the ability of elections to aggregate information: Existing theory demonstrates that large electorates can reach correct decisions by aggregating information dispersed among many voters. However, existing theory does not account for the ubiquitous presence of biased organizers who intend to affect the election outcome. Examples of biased organizers may include a CEO holding a shareholder vote, a regional government holding a referendum, and political parties in general elections. This project will develop and analyze new models of voting that account for the effects of biased organizers on information aggregation. One of the examples I consider is an election organizer who can increase voter participation at some cost (e.g., through advertising). Preliminary work suggests that the presence of biased organizers has significant impact. As increasing participation becomes cheap, equilibria exist where the election organizer recruits a large number voters and yet the majority votes almost surely for the organizer's favorite policy. This failure of information aggregation contrasts starkly with existing results for elections in which the number of voters is exogenously large. I will study the effectiveness of institutional safeguards against such manipulation, including supermajority rules, publicity requirements, and the regulation of communication to voters, and I will apply the theory in the context of shareholder voting and corporate control. Thus, this research program has important implications for the design of elections in realistic voting scenarios.
Project acronym POAB
Project The Psychology of Administrative Burden
Researcher (PI) Martin BÆKGAARD
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Summary The burdens of dealing with administrative rules and red tape in government are a fact of life around the world, ranging from small hassles to heavy burdens in the form of stigmatizing processes of proving eligibility and facing potential sanctions. In light of the immense importance of such burdens for millions of people and for the effectiveness of benefit programs, we know surprisingly little about the conditions that give rise to experiences of burden. POAB combines and extends extant theory and uses a unique combination of experimental methods and data to explain how, why, and for whom administrative rules are experienced as burdensome. POAB studies comprehensive rules regarding unemployment and social benefits and will provide novel register, physiological, and survey measures of welfare benefit recipients' experiences of burden. I develop and test three theories to explain differences in experiences of burden: 1) How resource scarcity causes cognitive load and hence reduces the ability to cope with rules; 2) How self-efficacy increases the ability to cope with rules; and 3) How perceptions of being undeserving cause stigma and stress. POAB analyses the causal impact of rules on burden. To this end, I use a unique combination of complementary experimental methods in political science: 1) Cross-national lab experiments with physiological measurement and manipulations of rules, scarcity, efficacy and deservingness perceptions; 2) Cross-national survey experiments to assess different aspects of rules in different contexts; 3) Quasi- and field experiments to assess the impact of rules on register measures of burdens in a real-world context. POAB offers a fundamentally new interdisciplinary approach by bridging the gap between research on administrative burdens and psychological perspectives. The project's output will provide profound knowledge of citizens' experiences of burden and the inequalities in such experiences among recipients of major welfare benefits.
The burdens of dealing with administrative rules and red tape in government are a fact of life around the world, ranging from small hassles to heavy burdens in the form of stigmatizing processes of proving eligibility and facing potential sanctions. In light of the immense importance of such burdens for millions of people and for the effectiveness of benefit programs, we know surprisingly little about the conditions that give rise to experiences of burden. POAB combines and extends extant theory and uses a unique combination of experimental methods and data to explain how, why, and for whom administrative rules are experienced as burdensome. POAB studies comprehensive rules regarding unemployment and social benefits and will provide novel register, physiological, and survey measures of welfare benefit recipients' experiences of burden. I develop and test three theories to explain differences in experiences of burden: 1) How resource scarcity causes cognitive load and hence reduces the ability to cope with rules; 2) How self-efficacy increases the ability to cope with rules; and 3) How perceptions of being undeserving cause stigma and stress. POAB analyses the causal impact of rules on burden. To this end, I use a unique combination of complementary experimental methods in political science: 1) Cross-national lab experiments with physiological measurement and manipulations of rules, scarcity, efficacy and deservingness perceptions; 2) Cross-national survey experiments to assess different aspects of rules in different contexts; 3) Quasi- and field experiments to assess the impact of rules on register measures of burdens in a real-world context. POAB offers a fundamentally new interdisciplinary approach by bridging the gap between research on administrative burdens and psychological perspectives. The project's output will provide profound knowledge of citizens' experiences of burden and the inequalities in such experiences among recipients of major welfare benefits.
Project acronym POWDER
Project Protest and Order. Democratic theory, contentious politics, and the changing shape of western democracies
Researcher (PI) Christian Rainer VOLK
Host Institution (HI) FREIE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN
Summary The research project aims to analyze the interrelationship between protest and political order under the contextual conditions of the changing shape of modern western democracy. Two groups of ques-tions are connected to this study perspective, which will be answered by means of a democratic-theoretically-led synchronous comparison of selected contemporary protest movements – anonymous digi-tal protest movements, transnationally organized alter-globalization protest movements, the No Border movement and the rightwing identitarian protest movement: The aim is to clarify firstly (1) the extent to which the new forms of protest question the premises of democratic orders, what potential for further de-velopment lies within the new forms of protest on the one hand, and what are the challenges to democracy on the other. Secondly, the aim is to determine (2) the influence and relevance held by the democratic order itself in an age of the changing shape of democracy with regard to the specific formation of the new forms of protest, and what statements can be made on how the formation of the order is changed, in turn, by the new forms of protest themselves. In order to achieve these study perspectives, POWDER consists of an overarching democratic-theoretical framework project (TFP) and four empirical subprojects (SP 1-4), which each analyze one of the protest movements mentioned in the context of a qualitative approach (documentary analysis, participatory observation, qualitative interviews). The comparison of these protest movements investigates (I) recurring patterns, but also contrasting assessments with regard to the interre-lationship between the political order and the protest movements, examines at a second level (II) the dif-ferent manners in which the new forms of protest challenge democratic-theoretical dimensions, and at-tempts at the third level (III) to reconstruct a general democratic-theoretical determination of meaning of present-day protest movements.
The research project aims to analyze the interrelationship between protest and political order under the contextual conditions of the changing shape of modern western democracy. Two groups of ques-tions are connected to this study perspective, which will be answered by means of a democratic-theoretically-led synchronous comparison of selected contemporary protest movements – anonymous digi-tal protest movements, transnationally organized alter-globalization protest movements, the No Border movement and the rightwing identitarian protest movement: The aim is to clarify firstly (1) the extent to which the new forms of protest question the premises of democratic orders, what potential for further de-velopment lies within the new forms of protest on the one hand, and what are the challenges to democracy on the other. Secondly, the aim is to determine (2) the influence and relevance held by the democratic order itself in an age of the changing shape of democracy with regard to the specific formation of the new forms of protest, and what statements can be made on how the formation of the order is changed, in turn, by the new forms of protest themselves. In order to achieve these study perspectives, POWDER consists of an overarching democratic-theoretical framework project (TFP) and four empirical subprojects (SP 1-4), which each analyze one of the protest movements mentioned in the context of a qualitative approach (documentary analysis, participatory observation, qualitative interviews). The comparison of these protest movements investigates (I) recurring patterns, but also contrasting assessments with regard to the interre-lationship between the political order and the protest movements, examines at a second level (II) the dif-ferent manners in which the new forms of protest challenge democratic-theoretical dimensions, and at-tempts at the third level (III) to reconstruct a general democratic-theoretical determination of meaning of present-day protest movements.
Project acronym RDRECON
Project Risky Decisions: Revealing Economic Behaviour
Researcher (PI) Steffen Andersen
Host Institution (HI) COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL
Summary Households are exposed to a wide array of monetary and non-monetary risks: employment risk, financial risk, interest rate risk, and health and mortality risk, to name a few. Society and policymakers can certainly help households manage risk, but to be effective, they need to understand the ways households cope with risk and how vulnerable they are to market and policy changes. For instance, how do households react to bank defaults and market failures? How personal do these experiences have to be for households to change behavior? And how permanent are the changes in behavior? The goal of the proposed research program is to understand how personal and market experiences affect financial decisions made by households, such as savings behavior, portfolio allocation, borrowing decisions, mortgage choices, and pension savings. RDRECON combines theory and evidence with an empirical research strategy that is comprised of both natural and field experiments. The theoretical component models how households make decisions. The empirical component uses both econometric and experimental methodologies to study actual household behavior across a range of economic and financial margins, as well as the influence of personal and market experiences on a household's financial choices. RDRECON's strength and path-breaking innovation is its combination of administrative register data and controlled field experiments to form treatment and control groups of interest which allow empirical identification of theoretical predictions. This approach puts theory to work and overcomes the limits of identification in natural experiments. To this end, RDRECON will further our understanding of how households respond to personal and market experiences, and provide helpful insights for policy makers.
Households are exposed to a wide array of monetary and non-monetary risks: employment risk, financial risk, interest rate risk, and health and mortality risk, to name a few. Society and policymakers can certainly help households manage risk, but to be effective, they need to understand the ways households cope with risk and how vulnerable they are to market and policy changes. For instance, how do households react to bank defaults and market failures? How personal do these experiences have to be for households to change behavior? And how permanent are the changes in behavior? The goal of the proposed research program is to understand how personal and market experiences affect financial decisions made by households, such as savings behavior, portfolio allocation, borrowing decisions, mortgage choices, and pension savings. RDRECON combines theory and evidence with an empirical research strategy that is comprised of both natural and field experiments. The theoretical component models how households make decisions. The empirical component uses both econometric and experimental methodologies to study actual household behavior across a range of economic and financial margins, as well as the influence of personal and market experiences on a household's financial choices. RDRECON's strength and path-breaking innovation is its combination of administrative register data and controlled field experiments to form treatment and control groups of interest which allow empirical identification of theoretical predictions. This approach puts theory to work and overcomes the limits of identification in natural experiments. To this end, RDRECON will further our understanding of how households respond to personal and market experiences, and provide helpful insights for policy makers.
Project acronym SkewPref
Project Skewness Preferences – Human attitudes toward rare, high-impact risks
Researcher (PI) Sebastian Ebert
Host Institution (HI) FRANKFURT SCHOOL OF FINANCE & MANAGEMENT GEMEINNUTZIGE GMBH
Summary "Penny-picking in front of a steamroller" describes the behavior of repeatedly taking risks with an unlikely but extreme downside in order to secure a small but likely benefit. Examples of penny-picking include risking one's life by driving too fast or blowing up financial bubbles by speculating that they will not burst just yet. Penny-picking suggests that people underweight rare, high-impact events when making their decisions. On the other hand, individuals overpay for lottery gambles and insurances alike, suggesting just the opposite—that people overweight rare, high-impact events. The goal of this project is to provide a fundamental understanding of humans' skewness preferences—our attitudes toward rare, high-impact risks. I show that skewness preferences are much more influential on behavior than previously realized and thus must take a central place in the economic analysis of risk. The reason is that skewness preferences have unexpected and far-reaching implications in dynamic decision situations, and I will study their complex interaction with time. I pursue this research agenda in three steps. First, I focus on static, one-time decision situations and define skewness preferences formally. I show that the leading economic theories—often implicitly—assign first-order importance to skewness preferences and that this observation explains much of these theories' success. Second, I study skewness preferences in dynamic settings and analyze their complex interaction with time preferences. I propose a new model that identifies the role of skewness for repeated risk-taking. Third, I test my theoretical contributions through experiments on rare, high-impact risks in static and repeated decision situations, using a relatively novel experimental technique to implement rare, high-impact events. Out of the theoretical explanations established, I seek to identify the fundamental reasons behind phenomena such as penny-picking or the underweighting-overweighting paradox.
"Penny-picking in front of a steamroller" describes the behavior of repeatedly taking risks with an unlikely but extreme downside in order to secure a small but likely benefit. Examples of penny-picking include risking one's life by driving too fast or blowing up financial bubbles by speculating that they will not burst just yet. Penny-picking suggests that people underweight rare, high-impact events when making their decisions. On the other hand, individuals overpay for lottery gambles and insurances alike, suggesting just the opposite—that people overweight rare, high-impact events. The goal of this project is to provide a fundamental understanding of humans' skewness preferences—our attitudes toward rare, high-impact risks. I show that skewness preferences are much more influential on behavior than previously realized and thus must take a central place in the economic analysis of risk. The reason is that skewness preferences have unexpected and far-reaching implications in dynamic decision situations, and I will study their complex interaction with time. I pursue this research agenda in three steps. First, I focus on static, one-time decision situations and define skewness preferences formally. I show that the leading economic theories—often implicitly—assign first-order importance to skewness preferences and that this observation explains much of these theories' success. Second, I study skewness preferences in dynamic settings and analyze their complex interaction with time preferences. I propose a new model that identifies the role of skewness for repeated risk-taking. Third, I test my theoretical contributions through experiments on rare, high-impact risks in static and repeated decision situations, using a relatively novel experimental technique to implement rare, high-impact events. Out of the theoretical explanations established, I seek to identify the fundamental reasons behind phenomena such as penny-picking or the underweighting-overweighting paradox.
Project acronym Strained2DMaterials
Project Unlocking new physics in controllably strained two-dimensional materials
Researcher (PI) Kirill Igorevich Bolotin
Summary "We will use strain engineering as an enabling tool to study previously inaccessible or hard-to-study phenomena in two-dimensional atomic crystals (2DACs: graphene, bilayer graphene, and monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides). In our first objective, we develop unique experimental tools to control and characterize mechanical strain in 2DACs. These are the distinguishing features of our approach: (i) The use of very low disorder suspended devices; (ii) Both uniform and controlled non-uniform strain will be induced; (iii) The level of strain will be precisely adjusted and determined in-situ during measurements. We will then use controllably-strained samples to study electrical, mechanical, thermal, and optical properties of 2DACs: Application of strain in suspended graphene will be shown to control amplitudes and dispersion relation of flexural out-of-plane phonons (FPs), a mode unique to 2D and quasi-2D materials. We will demonstrate, for the first time, that FPs dominate electrical, thermal, and mechanical of suspended graphene. Moreover, we will show dramatic mechanical softening of graphene in the regime of weak strain, similar to ""entropic spring"" behaviour seen in polymers. We will engineer strain distributions in high-mobility suspended graphene devices that translate into near-constant ""pseudomagnetic field"" and observe Quantum Hall-like quantization at zero external magnetic field. Strain-induced changes in topology of the band structure of bilayer graphene will be shown to affect Quantum Hall states and the Berry phase. Through strain engineering, we will controllably adjust - and even make spatially dependent - the band gap energy and binding energies of excitons in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). We will study complex interplay between and direct and indirect excitons and look for emergence of a new phase of matter, an excitonic insulator, in strained narrow-bandgap TMDC. "
"We will use strain engineering as an enabling tool to study previously inaccessible or hard-to-study phenomena in two-dimensional atomic crystals (2DACs: graphene, bilayer graphene, and monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides). In our first objective, we develop unique experimental tools to control and characterize mechanical strain in 2DACs. These are the distinguishing features of our approach: (i) The use of very low disorder suspended devices; (ii) Both uniform and controlled non-uniform strain will be induced; (iii) The level of strain will be precisely adjusted and determined in-situ during measurements. We will then use controllably-strained samples to study electrical, mechanical, thermal, and optical properties of 2DACs: Application of strain in suspended graphene will be shown to control amplitudes and dispersion relation of flexural out-of-plane phonons (FPs), a mode unique to 2D and quasi-2D materials. We will demonstrate, for the first time, that FPs dominate electrical, thermal, and mechanical of suspended graphene. Moreover, we will show dramatic mechanical softening of graphene in the regime of weak strain, similar to ""entropic spring"" behaviour seen in polymers. We will engineer strain distributions in high-mobility suspended graphene devices that translate into near-constant ""pseudomagnetic field"" and observe Quantum Hall-like quantization at zero external magnetic field. Strain-induced changes in topology of the band structure of bilayer graphene will be shown to affect Quantum Hall states and the Berry phase. Through strain engineering, we will controllably adjust - and even make spatially dependent - the band gap energy and binding energies of excitons in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). We will study complex interplay between and direct and indirect excitons and look for emergence of a new phase of matter, an excitonic insulator, in strained narrow-bandgap TMDC. "