Matěj Bajgar succeeded in the Primus competition

The results of the 9th round of the Primus competition, which is organised by Charles University to support young promising scientists, have been announced. One of the two successful projects that received support and funding this year at FSV is the project of our colleague Matěj Bajgar, entitled "Evidence-based Industrial Policy" (PRIMUS/25/SSH/008). 

The project support is intended for four years (January 2025 - December 2028), during which the research team will address key questions about the impact of structural and industrial policies on the economy.  

Abstract of the project:

Policy-makers are increasingly relying on “structural” or “industrial” policies to revive productivity growth and reach their strategic objectives. Subsidies and public procurement play a central role in this context, but there are still important gaps in our understanding of their effects on the economy.

First, there is little research to guide targeting of public funding towards particular industries or firms.

Second, we lack a broadly accepted theory of how firms select into applying for public funding and thus remain in the dark regarding the possible reallocation effects on aggregate productivity.

Third, there is a lack of evidence regarding the ability of structural policies to not just stimulate the quantity of investment but steer its composition (e.g. towards green technologies).

Fourth, we still have a limited understanding of how spillovers are transmitted in the economy and which firms or activities generate the most spillovers.

In this project, we aim to help address these questions with the help of unique datasets on business subsidies, public procurement and supplier-buyer links, novel strategies for causal estimation, and machine-learning techniques for text analysis.

Congratulations!