Objectives | Regulation and institutional design

MIMA-CM’s line of research on regulation and institutional design is divided in three areas:

I. The promotion of talent in institutions

The efficient use of resources in institutions is achieved through laws, rules and customs that reward talent and effort. But there is evidence that these objectives are difficult to achieve and often the remuneration of agents also depends on strokes of luck, or design flaws. For example, we know that the results of competitions for state administration bodies depend on circumstances unrelated to the merit of the candidates. In another area, workers who begin their working lives in recessions are paid less than those who begin their working lives in normal times. To delve deeper into this topic we will study the professional tennis circuit (ATP), an a priori 100% meritocratic institution.

II. Mobility in cities

Cars are one of the main sources of greenhouse gases. However, although the regulation of access to cities has received much media attention, we still do not have rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of these policies, which makes it difficult to make decisions when designing policies to improve air quality. In this area of the project we propose to investigate the effectiveness of limit access to cities to vehicles with higher emission rates through the experience of Madrid Central. In particular, we will explore whether this regulation is creating the right incentives to replace the most polluting cars, to promote shared mobility and ultimately to improve air quality.

III. Tourist accommodation market

The impact of platforms such as Airbnb on the use of homes for short-term rentals has been varied, affecting home purchase and rental prices, introducing competitive pressures on the tourism industry, benefiting local businesses with higher tourism spending, or displacing long-term residents from their original neighborhood. For this reason, its regulation has also been very varied. For example, cities like Santa Monica in the United States have completely banned short-term rentals of entire homes. In other cases, such as Amsterdam, rentals have been limited to a maximum of 60 nights a year and in Madrid, regulations have recently come into force restricting the supply of apartments.