Postdoctoral Research Assistant - Egham, United Kingdom - Royal Holloway University of London

Royal Holloway University of London

Verified Company

Egham, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

Department of Economics:

Location:

Egham
Salary:

- £39,233 per annum - including London Allowance-
Post Type:

Full Time
Closing Date:

hours GMT on Sunday 25 February 2024
Reference:
Full Time, Fixed Term (36 months)

Applications are invited for the post of Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the Department of Economics.

We are looking for two highly motivated individuals to join the research project
Social Mechanisms and Applications led by the Principal Investigator (PI), Professor David Levine.

The main goal of this project is to study social mechanisms and their allocations.

Social norms are crucial for groups to succeed:
from political parties, to labour unions, to special interest groups, even to criminal gangs.

Each of these groups faces a free-rider problem: it is in the interest of each individual in the group to let the others do the work of advancing the common interest.

Norms are equally pivotal in persuading individuals not to engage in anti-social behaviour, from littering, to thievery, and worse, where again a divide appears between individual goals and larger interests

The project aims to link work in game theory to the operation of social norms in a heterogenous agents' framework.

The project will involve economists, psychologists, and computer scientists at at Royal Holloway in order to understand how social norms develop and sustain themselves.

The project will explain and illustrate how a willingness of individuals to bear small costs for the sake of society can be leveraged into system-wide institutional changes.

The results will address both large questions that have defined the modern era - how can individuals be convinced to obey social rules that are not normally in their self-interest to follow? - and smaller puzzles of how institutions can better function.

Levine does not foresee one-size-fits-all solutions.

The norms that support some groups such as volunteer organizations providing health assistance to the poor promote the greater good, while in other cases, such as with special interest lobbying organizations, they can do harm.

Public policies should therefore aim to foster the formation of useful social norms in some cases and to transform existing norms in other cases.

Levine's earlier work on dynamic games has laid out the rules in economics for when self-interested agents will sacrifice current benefits for longer-term gains, provides the theoretical bridge to the present project.

The team will explore more concretely how agents who interact dynamically come to learn norms and how they build productive norms in the first place.

In the last decades, there has been emerging interest in algorithms to make predictions and decisions in financial markets. The project intends to add a new dimension by studying the interaction between machines and humans.

To answer these questions, a considerable innovation of the project is the use of economic experiments along with algorithmic simulations.

Training in using key software, including Python, at advanced level is a plus;
Demonstrable comprehensive experience of research in heterogenous agent modelling;
Designing economic experiments, setting up and coding economic experiment using major online platforms;
Experience of coding complex structural estimations, simulations;
Experience with constructing research funding proposals;
Ability to keep accurate records, strong communication skills, experience with interacting with research users and with researchers from related disciplines, and ability to work independently under regular supervision as well as within a team setting.

Please quote the reference
:

Closing Date
:23:59, 25 February 2024

Interview Date
:
To be Confirmed

Further details:

Job Description & Person SpecificationThe university has adopted hybrid working for some roles therefore some remote working may be possible for this role.