Major projects
Marie Curie Initial Training Network
CONsumer COmpetence Research Training (CONCORT)
ESMT project leader: Francine Espinoza
ESMT role: project partner
Academic partners: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (coordinator), Utrecht University, INSEAD, and LBS
Corporate partners: Tobii, VicarVision, and Philips
Funding: Seventh Framework Programme: Marie Curie Actions
Consumer science is touching the lives of 493 million EU consumers with their consumption representing 58% of the EU GDP, yet the insights of consumer research typically fail to have a substantial impact on consumer welfare. Consumer research is scattered across several disciplines in the social sciences with little communication occurring between research and practice.
The CONsumer Competence Research Training (CONCORT) tackles these issues, abandoning the marketing perspective of the persuasive agent trying to affect consumer decisions, and aiming to pioneer research from the consumer perspective. The project partners study consumer competence, a broad set of abilities, intuitions, knowledge and skills consumers need in order to make decisions that help them navigate successfully in the economic environment.
The aim of the CONCORT project is to train 14 Early Stage Researchers in this new perspective, in 8 high level partners: three business schools, two broad universities, and three corporate partners.
CONCORT adds an optimal blend between traditional training methods, innovative learning instruments, and thorough practice training through industrial secondments. The Early Stage Researchers will be trained to see the link between their theoretical training and thematic areas of real life consumer interest (environment, overspending, food choice, etc.).
The 4-year project commenced in December 2011 and is funded with an overall maximum European Union contribution of approximately €3,760,000 for the training network (ESMT contribution: approx. €454,900).
Archive
2010-2011
Michael Holtermann (Project leader), funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
Market Model Electric Mobility: Cars and infrastructure (MMEM)
Cars and infrastructure
ESMT European School of Management and Technology participated in the development of the future market for electric vehicles in Germany. A team of researchers and practitioners supported the German federal government’s “National Development Plan for Electric Mobility” with its research project “Market Model Electric Mobility: Cars and infrastructure” (MMEM).
The project’s main objective was to increase the transparency surrounding various energy and transport alternatives, in particular subsidy schemes for electric vehicles and choices for the development of the infrastructure needed to implement electric mobility. The team developed an econometric model for a comprehensive survey of costs and benefits of different infrastructure scenarios in Germany up to the year 2050.
Results (in German only) are available under www.mmem.eu.
The research project was funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Bundesumweltministerium). 
2009-2011
Raji Jayaraman (Project leader), funded by the DFG
The impact of school lunches: Evidence from an exogenous policy change
Project Leader: Raji Jayaraman
Funding: DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation)
Granted: €75,200
Inadequate child education is thought to be major impediment to economic development. Governments and donor agencies obviously have an incentive to implement policies promoting schooling. However, assessing the impact of various policy remedies to poor educational outcomes is problematic because of a chicken and egg problem. Are better outcomes (in say school enrollment or performance) a result of a policy intervention, or do those who have better outcomes simply demand better services? Are worse outcomes due to the quality of schooling provided, or is there purposive placement of public services in disadvantaged areas? Economists refer to these as “endogeneity” problems.
In 2001, the Indian Supreme Court issued an extraordinary and unexpected directive ordering errant states to properly institute a hot midday meal in primary schools. Using household and school survey data, this the proposed project will use this exogenous policy change to examine the causal impact of this policy—the largest school lunch (and nutrition) program in the world—on children’s schooling outcomes. We will use a number of different econometric approaches in examining the causal effect of midday meals on schooling outcomes, including difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) and instrumental variable (IV) methods.
ESMT European School of