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"Geek by Nature, Economist by Training" - About Me
e-home!
My name is Florian Bersier. Ich bin a quantitative economist by training and a 'geek' or 'tech-nerd' by nature. I am currently reading for a DPhil (read PhD) in `Information, Communication and the Social Sciences' at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, with the generous support of a Scatcherd European scholarship and an Economic and Social Research Council studentship.
My thesis is entitled "Topological and Economic Analysis of Interactions in Cyberspace: From eReputation to eTrust" and my research focuses on the determinants and mechanisms of both electronic reputation, e-Reputation and electronic trust, e-Trust -- the latter depending on the former. During my doctoral studies at the OII, I wish to examine when, how and why agents trust electronic entities/agents/individuals (e.g. C2C sellers, Forum and P2P active users, e-reviewers or any {groups of} netizens in general) despite the strong information asymmetry prevailing in digital environments. To do so, my works stress, among other things, the importance of:
- analyzing, understanding and defining what is trust in general and online trust in particular;
- taking a strong interest in the concept of online reputation or e-reputation;
- gathering and using experimental data to examine what determines e-Trust;
- developing abstract approaches to identify and analyse the mechanisms in play.
A few keywords:
Economist, Geek, PhD, student, Oxford, Internet, Research, e-reputation, e-trust, information economics, development and access to technology
Prior to coming to Oxford, I was a student at the École Polytechnique [Wiki], Palaiseau, France. During my graduate studies at Polytechnique, I accomplished both a Masters in Quantitative Economics and Finance jointly organized by the Department of Applied Mathematics and the Department of Economics at the École Polytechnique, and the Department of Economics and Finance at HEC-Paris [Wiki], and a research-oriented Masters in Economic Analysis and Policy housed by the Paris School of Economics [Wiki] and the École Normale Supérieure [Wiki]. I also hold a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Lausanne [Wiki], Faculty of HEC [Wiki], Switzerland, a Diploma in Economics from the University of Kent [Wiki], UK, and I am a former Microengineering student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne [Wiki].
Regarding my research experience, I have worked as a research assistant at the Paris School of Economics and have been an active member of the research team working both at the London School of Economics (LSE) [Wiki] and at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi, India, on the 2008-2009 Palanpur sixth survey [so-called Palanpur, India's economic “revolution”: A perspective from six decades of economic development in a North Indian village]. The research team at LSE was and is still headed by Lord Nicholas Stern and the team at CSH by Dr. Himanshu.
Beside my academic life, I have worked as a freelance webdesigner and programmer and, incidentally, I still like spending a part of my free time to write lines of code or to play with Adobe Flash and/or the GIMP. BTW, I am definitely an Open Source converted and preacher and it makes me difficult to use a computer running anything else than Linux (I use the Debian platform).
Last but not least, as a fellow of St Antony's College [Wiki], I feel really concerned by the diverse, complex and significant challenges the world we live in faces and strongly believe that the Internet represents one of the most efficient and relevant tools to use and develop in view of dealing with such challenges.
e-trust, e-reputation, economic theory, information economics, game theory, identification and authentication issues, development and access to technology.
Languages I speak:
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IT Languages: [more here...]
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| What is it? This graph represents the evolution of my digital footprint (i.e. how active, popular and impactful I'm online) over the past month. Source: QDOS.com |
Click on the picture to view original size.
To be brief and concise, I both study and love the Internet! This website is nothing else than the expression of those two facts. You will find here different forms of content (wiki entries, blog posts, papers) about my academic works, thoughts, ideas, interests...
For those of you who subscribe to my RSS Feed, I would like to thank you. Knowing that you are reading is truly inspiring and encouraging. If you have not yet subscribed, I would of course be honored if you would choose to do so. Either way, thank you for spending a few moments here, @ my e-home, and do not hesitate to post comments, contact me or link to me!
Cheers,
- Florian
Post Scriptum: This site strives toward web standards, usability, and accessibility. The front end of the site is structured with XHTML, styled with plenty of valid CSS, and embellished with juicy snippets of unobtrusive JavaScript. Behind the scenes, the site is powered by Apache, MySQL & PHP and runs on a shared server.