The research team composed by Salvador Barbera, Jordi Massó, Carmen Beviá, Caterina Calsamiglia, Miguel Angel Ballester, Guillaume Haeringer, Xavier Vilà y Sebastian Bervoets, has been awarded a 5-year research project on "Institutional Design and Good Governmental Practice: Theory, Applications and Simulations " by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

The abstract of the project: Institutional design plays an important role in economic analysis, evidence of which is the recent concession of the Nobel Prize to Hurwicz, Maskin and Myerson. The purpose is to analyze mechanisms, existing or theoretically motivated, that will lead agents to behave efficiently. Among these mechanisms we find auctions, voting procedures, matching mechanisms, rationing rules, negotiation schemes, and any market or arbitrage situation. We propose to further study issues in this general area, which has been the unifying topic in our previous projects, although incorporating new lines of research. On the theoretical aspects, we wish to emphasize the problems of information and networks, and to revise basic concepts, like the notion of rationality, in light of the new behavioral theories. On the applied side, we focus mainly on the mechanisms used by public authorities like schools, universities or hospitals to assign students or interns. Methodologically, we incorporate simulations as a method to analyze models that given their high complexity are not tractable through theoretical analysis only. In terms of the topics we address, we widen our studies to issues previously unexplored by our team, such as the decisions concerning science and innovation and aspect of international bargaining. In any case we remain committed to issues of efficiency and justice in order to guide institutional design.