CRC TRR 190
Within the Collaborative Research Center Transregio "Rationality and Competition" (CRC TRR 190) WZB assumes two research projects: one in the research unit Market Behavior, the other in the research unit Economics of Change. The CRC TRR 190 combines the research programs of neoclassical and behavioral economists to study applied economic questions that are of high policy relevance.
The project "Educational Choices, Market Design, and Social Outcomes" of the research unit Market Behavior
Educational decisions set the course for life. But they also influence social mobility in a society. Examples are the choice of school or school type, or the choice between study and training. There is much evidence that distorted perceptions and lack of information play an important role in these decisions. The central idea of the research project is to examine the impact of distorted expectations and misinformation on educational decisions and educational results, taking into account the institutional design of the allocation mechanisms and education markets.
The main innovation of the project is to examine educational decisions and their impact in different institutional contexts. The so-called market design, i.e. the organization of the distribution of school or study places, shows how harmful misinformation or misjudgement of own abilities can be. The development of mechanisms and decision-making architectures that protect less well-informed candidates from the negative impact of their misjudgment is one of the objectives of the project.
Dorothea Kuebler, Director of the research unit Market Behavior, and Ludger Woeßmann (Ifo Institute and LMU Munich) will use experimental data, surveys and observation data to take advantage of the strengths of the departments involved at Ifo Institute and WZB.
The Collaborative Research Center "Rationality and Competition" (CRC TRR 190) is a joint venture of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and Humboldt-University Berlin in collaboration with DIW Berlin, ESMT Berlin, ifo Institute Munich, MPI-CI Munich, WZB Berlin and TU Berlin.