Health Economics

Agnieszka Postepska
I am an Assistant Professor in the Economics, Econometrics and Finance Department at the University of Groningen. My main research interests lie in the field of applied microeconomics. In particular, I am interested in labor, migration, development and education economics. My current research focuses on immigrants in the US, with a focus on human capital transmission, occupational networks and relative position of immigrant groups on the labor market as well as labor force participation of women in the Netherlands. With respect to public health, I am interested in the interplay of health and the labor market. In particular I'm interested in how flexible employment forms mediate the adverse effects of health on labor market outcomes.

Raun van Ooijen
Raun van Ooijen is a Health Economist at the department of Health Sciences at the University Medical Center Groningen and University of Groningen and a fellow of Netspar. His research focuses on health-related risks over the life cycle, with an emphasis on work disability and long-term care. He is particularly interested in the value of social insurance programs to mitigate these risks and their effects on socioeconomic inequalities.

Stefan Pichler
Stefan Pichler is an Associate Professor at RUG since November 2021. Stefan Pichler’s research is in the field of applied health and labor economics. In particular, he analyzes the interaction of social security systems with labor markets and population health. Another focus of his work are the economic consequences of diseases. His research has been published in leading international field journals such as Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Journal of Health Economics, , but also in multidisciplinary and policy journals such as Health Affairs and PNAS. He previously worked as senior researcher for KOF at ETH Zurich (2013-2021) and as a research assistant at TU Darmstadt (2009-2013). He also held a short-term position as TA at Goethe University Frankfurt (2010-2011). Stefan Pichler completed his doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Finance Economics and Management and earned his PhD in 2013 at the TU Darmstadt. The title of his PhD thesis is “Infectious Diseases and the Economy”. Before that he studied at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Free University of Bolzano.

Richard Rijnks
I am Richard Rijnks and I work as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen. My health-related research focuses on the role spatial configurations can play in the production and reproduction of health and well-being inequalities, and how these inequalities affect the individuals in those neighbourhoods. How do happier and higher quality neighbourhoods affect house prices, well-being, and development, and how do local cultures of healthy and unhealthy behaviour impact on the longer term outcomes for their residents. For the immediate future, I am turning my attention to the role spatial policy can play in neighbourhood health and well-being outcomes.

Jan P.A.M. Jacobs
Jan P.A.M. Jacobs studied econometrics at the University of Groningen and played volleyball at the international level (46 caps). After a brief spell at Philips Medical Systems, he returned to his alma mater and graduated in 1998 on "Econometric Business Cycle Research".

He is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen where he teaches Applied Macroecometrics for Research Masters students and supervises bachelors, master and PhD thesis.

He published more than forty articles in peer-reviewed journals in economics (Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Macroeconomics Dynamics, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Journal of Macroeconomics), law (International Journal of Law in the Built Environment), and medicine (BMC Family Practice, Economics and Human Biology).

His current interests include empirical macroeconomics, including macroeconomic modeling, business cycles and financial crises, quantitative economic history, statistics in law, and health economics.

He is a Fellow of the Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisation and Management), a fellow of the Centre for International Banking, Insurance and Banking (CIBIF), a fellow of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, a fellow of the Euro Area Business Cycle Network, a research associate of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, and an associate fellow of CIRANO, Montréal, Canada.