In this project, we will investigate the role of human capital in shaping inequalities over the life course in three quite different country contexts.We aim to shed new light on the process of human capital formation during adolescence and adulthood. Our research plan addresses directly the theme of the call by relating different dimensions of inequality (on education opportunities and outcomes, human capital, employment and earnings), how they relate to individual circumstances (such as socio-economic background, gender and family arrangements), how they develop over the life course and how they are influenced by the education and welfare systems. Our research will be organised under three inter-related themes, spanning themes 2-3 and branching to theme 1 of the DIAL programme: sorting of young people across education pathways; interactions between different investments in human capital; and, the insurance role of human capital. We will study these questions across three European countries representative of three distinct policy paradigms: the UK (with a comparatively low employment protection and low social insurance), France (respectively high, high) and Norway (low, high).The differences in the extent of inequality and policy context across the three countries will enable rich cross country comparisons. The research team will be led by Professor Sir Richard Blundell from the IFS, with Professor Kjell Salvanes from NHH leading the Norway team and Professor Eric Maurin from PSE leading the France team.The significant and varied experience of the project leads and wider research team will allow us to producing academic papers that will be submitted to the top tier of economics journals and achieve significant impact on public policy.

Over the last decades, economic and social inequalities in Europe have risen sharply along many dimensions. We propose a four-strand research programme aimed at understanding these phenomena by focusing on the origins, dynamics and consequences of early inequalities in human capital accumulation in France, Norway and the UK. First, we examine the impacts of early shocks on inequalities in human capital and socio-economic outcomes at different stages of the lifecycle. Second, we assess the performance of targeted vs universal policies at reducing inequalities by socioeconomic status and gender across the three countries. Third, we analyse the role of parents in compensating and/or reinforcing children’s human capital endowments and the implications for the intergenerational transmission of inequalities. Fourth, we study the role of peers and assess the potential of simple interventions influencing social interactions between students in reducing inequalities. All four strands directly relate to the aims of the NORFACE DIAL research programme. Our research will benefit policy-makers and European citizens by informing the design of early life policies that can reduce social, economic and health inequalities. Additionally, it will contribute to the academic literature on the process of human capital formation and its role in shaping inequalities. The research teams forming this bid will take a multi-disciplinary, cross-country comparative perspective, and will use state-of-the-art econometric methods and rich administrative, longitudinal survey and experimental data from all three countries. The main applicant, Kjell Salvanes, has extensive experience managing large research grants with international collaborators.

In this project, we will investigate the role of human capital in shaping inequalities over the life course in three quite different country contexts.We aim to shed new light on the process of human capital formation during adolescence and adulthood. Our research plan addresses directly the theme of the call by relating different dimensions of inequality (on education opportunities and outcomes, human capital, employment and earnings), how they relate to individual circumstances (such as socio-economic background, gender and family arrangements), how they develop over the life course and how they are influenced by the education and welfare systems. Our research will be organised under three inter-related themes, spanning themes 2-3 and branching to theme 1 of the DIAL programme: sorting of young people across education pathways; interactions between different investments in human capital; and, the insurance role of human capital. We will study these questions across three European countries representative of three distinct policy paradigms: the UK (with a comparatively low employment protection and low social insurance), France (respectively high, high) and Norway (low, high).The differences in the extent of inequality and policy context across the three countries will enable rich cross country comparisons. The research team will be led by Professor Sir Richard Blundell from the IFS, with Professor Kjell Salvanes from NHH leading the Norway team and Professor Eric Maurin from PSE leading the France team.The significant and varied experience of the project leads and wider research team will allow us to producing academic papers that will be submitted to the top tier of economics journals and achieve significant impact on public policy.

The aim of the research project "Fairness, personal responsibility and the welfare state" is to analyze how fairness considerations, in particular with respect to personal responsibility, affect the support and effectiveness of welfare policies. The European welfare states are faced with important challenges, in particular related to financial strains on the welfare system, changing migration flows and increasing inequality. Partly as a response to these challenges, there is an increasing focus on personal responsibility. The proposed research project will provide new knowledge about how the welfare states can meet these challenges and how concerns for personal responsibility can be integrated in the design of welfare schemes in a way that is perceived as fair. The research project has three main parts that all are highly relevant to the call. Part A of the research project studies how people attribute personal responsibility for outcomes and the link between views about personal responsibility and the support for redistributive welfare policies. Part B of the research project studies peoples preferences in situations where it is impossible to implement the welfare policies that are seen as most fair. In Part C of the research project we study what we refer to as reference-dependent social preferences and examine whether such preferences might shed light on cross-country differences in the support for welfare schemes. Taken together, the three parts of this research project represent a unique research agenda addressing questions that are of fundamental importance for understanding the challenges faced by the European welfare states. Four research teams from three countries; Austria, Norway and the Netherlands, will take a cross-disciplinary perspective on fairness and use an innovative combination of methods, including lab and field experiments, survey studies and collection of administrative data. The main applicant, Alexander W. Cappelen, is the director of The Choice Lab at NHH Norwegian School of Economics. Cappelen has extensive experience managing large research programs with international collaborators. The infrastructure at The Choice Lab will provide the basic support for the research project.