Double-digit million funding goes to CBS research

Photo: 32-year-old Assistant Professor at the Department of Finance, Arna Olafson, is one of the four grant recievers. She will investigate how technological development influences individuals’ attention to their personal finances.

Do entrepreneurs perceive risks and uncertainty differently? How do people make financial decisions surrounded by great uncertainty? Which conditions are most optimal for crowdsourcing? How does technology impact people's financial behaviour?

These are questions which four researchers from Copenhagen Business School have received grants to investigate. The grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research comes at a time where CBS has experienced a decline in funding from the public sector. This development is caused by an increased competition for less public research funding.

One of the grant receivers is 32-year-old Assistant Professor at the Department of Finance Arna Olafson. Her research might give a new perspective on why people behave as they do in the popular Danish television programme "Luxury Trap". The programme illustrates how ordinary people continuously have overdrafts and great difficulties in managing their financial situation.

Arna Olafsson's research project called "Fintech and Financial Fitness" concentrates on financial behaviour and explains in details how technological development influences the financial decision-making process and the individuals’ attention to their personal finances.

"Due to the increasing use of technology to quickly access information, people are presumably better equipped to make good choices. But at the same time, individuals seem to struggle more than ever to manage their personal finances. I will investigate what role technology has in relation to this growing issue," says assistant professor Arna Olafsson.

By tracking people's online behaviour through a financial app, she will be able to measure technology adoption and individuals' financial attention in ways that previously were not possible. She hopes her results will make policy makers better equipped to design policies which enable people to improve their personal finances. The research results will be ready in 2019.

Get an overview of the four projects which have received funding:

Project name: Fintech and Financial Fitness.
Grant recipient: Arna Olafsson, the Department of Finance.
Amount granted: DKK 1,161,973
The project will examine how increased use of new technology, which provides better access to information, can influence consumers' financial decisions.
Contact Arna Olafsson

Project name: Beliefs and Decisions Under Ambiguity: Evidence From The Field.
Grant recipient: Morten Igel Lau, Department of Economics.
Amount granted: DKK 2,284,471. The project will investigate how people make financial decisions surrounded by great uncertainty.
Kontakt Morten Igel Lau

Project name: Crowdsourcing-based problem solving: The role and effects of collaboration among contestants.
Grant recipient: Marion Poetz, Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics.
Amount granted: DKK 5,448,948
The project will examine a relatively new phenomenon in the corporate sector; crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a term describing the public and private companies' ability to include external stakeholders which normally are not a part of an organisation in relation to the development and financing of new activities and products.
Kontakt Marion Poetz

Project name: Entrepreneurs' Cognition and Perception of Risk and Ambiguity - Event-Related fMRI.
Grant recipient: Toke Reichstein, Department of Strategic Management and Globalization.
Amount granted: DKK 3,329,464
The project will investigate the behaviour of entrepreneurs in high risk and uncertain environments.  Through different methods including brain scans, the goal is to research whether entrepreneurs perceive and cognitively manage risks and uncertainty differently than others.
Kontakt Toke Reichstein

Read more about the grants

For more information please contact:
Dean's Office, Research at CBS

About the Danish Council for Independent Research
The Danish Council for Independent Research gives grants to basic research projects which promote the quality of Danish research. The grants are aimed at projects which are theoretically and methodologically well-documented, and which can advance both younger researchers' career paths and develop the competences of established research directors. It is also emphasised that the projects can have potential for international collaboration.
Source: The Danish Council for Independent Research