Accreditations and Macroprojects

In 2022, the Department of Economics of the UC3M has been awarded the “María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence” distinction by the Spanish National Research Agency. This distinction is granted to public research centers and units that demonstrate global scientific leadership and impact. This award also was held by the UC3M Department of Economics for the 2015-2019 period.

The mission of the European Research Council (ERC) is to promote the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support research in all fields of science based on scientific excellence. The ERC Competitiveness Scholarships support projects on the border of researchers seeking to establish or consolidate their research team or program or leading researchers in their field. These scholarships have become indicators of excellence in scientific research.

Nowadays, two members from the Department of Economics have obtained an ERC Consolidator Grant:

Markets, Innovation and Environment – Community of Madrid is a joint research programe to advance research related to industrial economics, innovation and the environment. This project arises from the collaboration between four institutions to advance industrial economics, innovation and environmental issues. It is organised around four research sub-projects.

The first one studies aspects related to innovation and its promotion. To this end, the links between universities and companies in the transfer of knowledge and the effects related to the localisation of innovative activity are analysed. Innovation in technological standards is also studied.

The second subproject focuses on energy and the environment. It studies the incentives for companies to invest in renewable energy and the effects of these technologies on competition in the electricity market. It also advances understanding of how to design international environmental agreements.

The third sub-project studies aspects related to competition. On the one hand, it analyses access to information technologies and other frequently purchased products. It also explores aspects related to advertising in the context of the pharmaceutical industry and vertical relationships in durable goods.

The fourth and final sub-project deals with regulatory and institution design issues. It looks at how to create meritocratic systems and how to combine the benefits related to mobility or tourism with the delimitation of the externalities they generate in cities. In this last aspect, the case of Madrid is studied in particular. This project is part of the scientific-technological priority line of the Community of Madrid ‘Business and innovation: new models for attracting capital and employment’. Further information in MIMA-CM.

The consortium integrates the research groups in microeconomics, industrial economics and political, public and welfare economics of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (uc3m), as well as the research groups in mathematical methods of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (uam) and the uc3m. These research groups interact, in turn, with other researchers and research groups from the uc3m’s economics department (a leading research centre in the area of economics in Spain and Europe, as shown by its position in international rankings of research productivity) and from the uam’s department of economic analysis.

The consortium’s research aims to contribute to a better understanding of fundamental questions of political economy and regulation in the current environment of rapid technological change and global instability. Specifically, the consortium’s objectives include issues related to banking supervision and access to credit, investment and risk management, economic regulation, bargaining and contract theory, public tendering, the design of allocation mechanisms in the absence of markets, social mobility and diversity, resource exploitation and social welfare, political stability and collective action. These are therefore issues of great relevance for the design of public policies, closely related to the priority lines “demographic and social change and inclusive societies in a global world” and “enterprise and innovation: new models of attracting capital and employment”.

The groups approach research on these topics using theoretical, empirical and, when the topic allows, experimental methods. To carry out its research, the consortium relies on the infrastructure (computer equipment, specific software, laboratories) provided by the universities, departments and institutes in which its researchers participate.

The expected results are that each of the research projects described in the consortium’s work programme will generate at least one publication in an international journal of impact in the field.

With its research activities, the consortium expects to contribute significantly to promoting the international visibility of economics research in the region, to attract talent to the Region of Madrid, to train researchers by supporting the uc3m Doctoral Programme and to improve the quality of undergraduate studies in economics and, in general, in the social sciences offered by the uc3m and the uam. Further information in MAD-ECON-POL.

This consortium brings together all researchers in the Department of Economics at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), integrated into research groups in Microeconomics and Industrial Economics, Macroeconomics, Development and Labor Economics, Econometrics and Applied Economics, and the group of Quantitative Research and Mathematics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) Economy.

The consortium’s research seeks to contribute to a better understanding of some of the major economic, political, demographic, and social problems that countries, which currently participate in a globalized economy and a world, have to face.

Specific research topics addressing key issues such as regulation of markets, the design and evaluation of policies, design of electoral systems and federal organizations, analysis of social conflicts, migration policies, social mobility, redistributive effects of macroeconomic policies, the aggregate consequences of investment decisions of households and businesses, the orientation of investment in research and development, evaluation of scientific production, or the consequences of climate change.

In addition, research topics include methodological studies on the properties of the equilibria in contests and competitive markets, or system solutions and dynamic games, needed to facilitate research on substantive issues, as well as, the treatment of databases of a different nature (panel, space, duration, dynamic) and the development of new econometric methods to allow better use in hypothesis testing of the available empirical evidence.

The result of this research will generate a significant number of publications in professional journals of maximum impact, and contribute to improving scientific production and international visibility of researchers in the consortium.Further information in MADECO-CM.