PATRICK BOLTON
Imperial College London, Business School
ERC ADVANCED GRANT
FinanceCC – Investors and Climate Change
PHOEBE KOUNDOURI
Athens University of Economics and Business
ERC SYNERGY GRANT
Water Futures – Smart Water Futures: designing the next generation of urban drinking water systems
MAR REGUANT RIDO
Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANT
ENECML – Understanding the Energy Transition with a Machine Learning Toolbox
PATRICK BOLTON
Imperial College London, Business School
ERC ADVANCED GRANT
FinanceCC – Investors and Climate Change
Start date: July 2020 End date: August 2025
This research project is divided into two major themes: (A) to determine how financial markets provide the asset price signals and information to help investors shape their portfolio strategies in the face of climate change risk; (B) to identify how institutional investors approach climate change and engage with companies to lead them to accelerate the transition towards renewable energy. These two themes cannot be separated from public policy towards climate change, and the broader context of the global fight against climate change by governments, municipalities, regulators and civil society. Accordingly, a major aspect of the research is to make explicit how public policy shapes corporate behaviour through the actions of institutional investors.
PHOEBE KOUNDOURI
Athens University of Economics and Business
ERC SYNERGY GRANT
Water Futures – Smart Water Futures: designing the next generation of urban drinking water systems
Start date: August 2021 End date: July 2027
The project aims to develop a framework for the allocation and development decisions about water infrastructure systems. The goal is that these systems become more socially equitable, economically efficient and environmentally resilient, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030. The results of the “Water-Futures” project will provide the theoretical and practical basis to enable various stakeholders, policy makers and administrators of these systems to make socially acceptable and fair decisions, which will balance short-term decisions. taken algorithmically in real time, together with long-term decisions concerning the transition and planning of new infrastructure for the evolution of urban water distribution systems. In addition, the new scientific results will be applied to three exemplary studies presenting different types of systems: a mature and relatively stable system in the Netherlands, a mature and rapidly growing system in Cyprus and a relatively recent supply system in Mexico with high growth and specific challenges, which contain limited resources, intermittent supply and significant water loss due to leaks.
The project team includes Professor Marios Polycarpou (University of Cyprus), Professor Barbara Hammer (Bielefeld University), and Professor Dragan Savić (KWR Water Research Institute/University of Exeter).
MAR REGUANT RIDO
Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANT
ENECML – Understanding the Energy Transition with a Machine Learning Toolbox
Start date: September 2021 End date: August 2026
The goal of the project is to build tools to better understand the economic impacts of the rapid transformation of electricity markets, and to help better design electricity markets going forward. The proposed research focuses both on firm strategic responses and investment (supply-side), as well as consumer behavior and welfare and distributional impacts (demand-side). The project will examine these issues in detail with unique high- frequency micro-data on firms and households. The tools and models developed in this project can help understand the impacts of the energy transition, both on the supply and the demand side. Among the expected methodological contributions, machine learning tools with more standard structural modeling will be combined. On the supply side, the project emphasizes the need to understand how strategic behavior interacts with market design in the presence of intermittent resources. On the demand side, the project highlights the importance of understanding the distributional implications of such changes with special attention to the residential sector and the most vulnerable socio-economic households.
