Vidi grant for Tom Boot

Tom Boot has received a Vidi grant of 850.000 euros from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business’ Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance was awarded the grant for his research on the econometrics of latent connections. With this grant, Boot can further develop his own innovative research plans and establish his own research group.

The summary of the research project reads: Economic policies do not just affect one individual, one company, or one country. Instead, their effects spread: a wage increase affects the direct recipient and those that depend on their income, a financial stimulus for one local business affects others in the supply chain, and so forth. In practice, researchers rarely know who is exactly connected to whom. As a result, economic policy can produce unintended and unpredictable side effects. Tom Boot’s research project will develop new methods to uncover hidden economic connections directly from data. By making these links visible, policy makers can anticipate and manage spillovers, rather than being surprised by them.

Tom Boot: “I am very glad to receive this grant and look forward to start working on the research projects. There is a lot of exciting econometric theory that needs to be developed to learn latent connections from our data, and I am eager to apply the insights in collaborations across different fields and with regional partners. Many thanks to colleagues across the faculty for their support.”

Vidi Grant

Vidi grants are intended for experienced researchers who have been conducting successful research for some years after obtaining a PhD. Alongside the Veni and Vici grants, the Vidi grant is part of the NWO Talent Programme. Within this programme, researchers are free to submit their own topics for funding. Previously, in 2020, Boot was the recipient of a Veni grant for his research project aimed at developing adaptive accuracy measures that lead to accurate forecasts in extraordinary circumstances.

Questions? Please contact Tom Boot.