Faculty of Economics and Business

Last year, at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27), developed countries acknowledged their responsibility in causing most of today’s climate change and formally agreed to financially aid developing countries for their climate change-related losses (of ecosystems, heritage and culture) and excess damages (from the excess losses from extreme weather events). This is widely referred to as the UN ‘loss and damage’ fund. Bert Kramer, lecturer at FEB and head of climate research at Ortec Finance, together with co-authors from Ortec Finance, Cadlas, the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, and QuTec Srl, published an opinion piece in 'Nature' on a mechanism to make this climate loss and damage funding work.

Globally, the ranks of firms with an explicit corporate purpose statement are quickly growing. Advice on how to “get purpose done” is proliferating. Should all firms join the bandwagon? What approach to purpose suits a firm? There are different suggestions as to how to set a firm’s purpose. In a recent paper in Strategy Science, Assistant Professor Björn Mitzinneck, together with professor Marya Besharov (University of Oxford), set out to bring structure into this wild-growth of recommendations. 

Co-creation and interdisciplinarity are two themes that have long taken centre stage in the work of Iris Vis, who was recently appointed Captain of Science of the Top Sector Logistics. The UG's communication department met up with her to talk about this role. How did Vis’s appointment as Captain of Science come about? And what are her plans for the future?

Extinction Rebellion has achieved what academics could not, says Bert Scholtens, Professor of Sustainable Banking and Finance. The environmental movement has put the massive and pervasive subsidies for fossil fuels on the political agenda. The rebels have a cause and are making it clear that fossil fuels are a curse, not a blessing. It is time to phase out fossil fuel subsidies for a healthier and more sustainable planet.

Using new data on the export income of workers, researchers Hagen Kruse, Marcel Timmer, Gaaitzen de Vries and Xianjia Ye explored the activity specialization of fifty-two economies during 2000-18. They found strong patterns over income: while low-income economies tend to specialize in production activities, rich economies earn most export income from non-production activities (such as engineering or management).

Before the summer, the city of Barcelona garnered attention for more than just FC Barcelona's first La Liga victory without Lionel Messi. The Barcelona city council approved a new delivery tax aimed at addressing a growing list of issues tied to home deliveries—emissions, safety hazards, and traffic congestion, to name a few. One of the ambitious targets is to have 40% of e-commerce purchases delivered to pick-up points instead of directly to consumers' homes. But as cities like Barcelona wrestle with home delivery issues, a question looms large: Is out-of-home delivery truly the more sustainable alternative?

When she was still a marketing student at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Freya Liemburg already ran two businesses through which she acquired valuable entrepreneurial knowledge and shared her marketing insights with other companies and like-minded online entrepreneurs. Now, she is the managing director of the Customer Insights Center, one of the Centres of Expertise that are part of FEB. We talked to Liemburg about her career, the Customer Insights Center and the value of applied research carried out in close collaboration with companies. 

In her research, Marloes Korendijk focuses on Corporate Social Responsibilty within multinationals. Since she studies working relationships that cross countries, it was only logical for her to also take this international, cross-cultural approach in her entire PhD trajectory. She thus decided to go for a Joint Doctorate and is a PhD candidate at both the Faculty of Economics and Business in Groningen and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.  Recently, she also visited the University of Washington in Seattle as a research scholar. Soon, she will go on to Sydney to finish her PhD. FEB Research talked to Korendijk about her research, her experiences abroad and the importance of embedding yourself in other cultures as a researcher. 

Associate Professor of International Economics Tristan Kohl recently received a grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). He got the grant for research on how lobbying by firms and non-governmental organizations shapes the rules on international trade. FEB Research talked to Kohl about his NWO project and the value of understanding how trade policies are formed and how they shape the economic environment.