Matthias Rodemeier, Assistant Professor of Finance at Bocconi University, has been awarded a €1.5 million ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council for his project "Market-Based Solutions for Environmental Challenges" (M4E).

Over the next five years, the project will examine the expanding role of private markets in areas where environmental regulation remains incomplete -- both mitigation markets that avoid pollution, such as carbon offsets, and adaptation markets that help people adjust to pollution and heat. Both can be promising complements to environmental policy but suffer from severe informational frictions. M4E will test whether better market design -- through information disclosure, monitoring, and contract design -- can make these markets more effective. The research includes a large-scale field experiment using tamper-resistant, blockchain-based monitoring to measure the true emission reductions of carbon offsets, experiments on whether AI-tailored advice helps buyers identify high-impact offsets, and an analysis of millions of food deliveries in Italy to design fairer pay mechanisms that compensate couriers for environmental health risks.

ERC Starting Grants are among the most competitive research awards in Europe, supporting early-career researchers of exceptional promise as they build their own teams and pursue frontier research. With this award, the total number of ERC grants won by Bocconi researchers rises to 75.

We warmly congratulate Matthias on this outstanding achievement.