EMERGENT PHENOMENA IN SOCIETY:
POLARIZATION, SEGRETATION, INEQUALITY

RPA PSI PROJECT HUB

PROJECT HUB

Below you find potential ideas for research projects at the interface of polarisation, segregation and inequality. Postdoctoral fellows are encouraged to design alternative or more general research projects in these areas:

(1) Uncover the reciprocal causal links between segregation and inequality at the level of the Netherlands. Urban segregation is intimately connected with inequality and the housing market. This project will integrate agent-based models of segregation with canonical macroeconomic models with housing, taking into account effects such as keeping up with the richer Joneses and using data from CBS. Legal research aimed at addressing the role of law in the manner in which inequality has arisen in housing markets will be taken into account. 

(2) Understand the feedback loops between inequality and polarisation at the level of the City of Amsterdam. Recent research has shown a strong correlation between opinion/voting preference and income inequality in Amsterdam. This project aims at combining models of opinion polarization, such as the Hierarchical Ising Opinion Model (HIOM), with macroeconomic models of income inequality using data from the Municipality of Amsterdam. This project links directly to contextual research pursued by Uitermark in connection with the FMG focus area on “Polarization”.

(3) Understand the causal links between polarisation and segregation with focus on Dutch schools. This project aims at uncovering to what extent polarization in school choice is connected to school segregation. To this aim we will be combining agent-based models developed by Lees in the project COMPASS with HIOM and continuous voter models. Relevant data will be acquired via the municipality and the data collection project pursued by the FMG focus area on “Polarisation”.