Francqui Prize 2019 goes to KU Leuven research into the impact of family decisions on individual well-being

This year's Francqui Prize, often dubbed 'the Belgian Nobel Prize', has been awarded to three KU Leuven economists: Laurens Cherchye, Bram De Rock, and Frederic Vermeulen. For the first time in the history of the Prize, there are three laureates - a perfect illustration of what team science can accomplish. The three economists from the KU Leuven Faculty of Economics and Business have developed a methodology to reliably explain and predict the decisions made by individual family members and the distribution of money and time within families. The jury praises the research for its high societal relevance: it allows for sharp conclusions about the impact of government measures - including a reform of the personal income tax or divorce legislation - on family decisions and the individual well-being that goes with it. The prize-winning project focuses on the analysis of the decision-making behaviour of individual family members, based on the 'collective model'. This economic model explicitly takes into account that individuals in families have distinct preferences. The laureates further expanded this model and developed a methodology to can not only explain the decisions made by family members and the distribution of time and money within families but can also predict these elements.