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2018

Jing Wan is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen.

The psychology in your shopping basket

Date:19 December 2018

When you are shopping in the supermarket, do you see friendly faces on the shelves? Giving brands a face and personality is a key part of marketing. There are familiar characters the world over, from Mr Clean, to the Michelin man. This is the research...

"Jessica de Bloom is a Rosalind Franklin Fellow working in HRM & Organizational Behavior at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen. Photo by Rami Marjamaeki.

All I want for Christmas is… recovery

Date:17 December 2018
Author:Jessica de Bloom

Prevention of burnout and recovering from highly demanding jobs is important for the wellbeing of employees and crucial for firm performance. Accordingly, finding out how to reduce stress is vital from both a business and a personal perspective. Holidays m...

Hanna Fromell is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

Why southeast Asia may hold the answer to a worldwide health problem

Date:14 December 2018

How to best prevent and treat diseases at a societal level? When considering this question, your mind might initially jump to tactics like quarantine, hygiene and the provision of medicine. But what if the diseases in question do not pass from person to...

Milena Nikolva is assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

If your spouse loses their job, prepare for a rough ride

Date:12 December 2018

If your partner unexpected loses their job, how much does it impact your well-being? Assistant professor Milena Nikolova explains her research on the topic of spousal unemployment and happiness in the new episode of podcast Econ 050.

Burcu Subasi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Business

How perceptions of minorities can affect their job performance

Date:04 December 2018

Not minorities are equal – some are more equal than others in the eyes of their majority culture colleagues.

Donald Trump on the campaign trail by Gage Skidmore

Trump vs China Part III: Let's be friends again

Date:30 November 2018
Author:Steven Brakman, Harry Garretsen, and Tristan Kohl

According to Trump, the deficit on the United States’ current account indicates unfair trade. Trade is a key issue in the Trump administration’s international economic policy. The main strategy – imposing tariffs on imports from any country the...

Econ 050 is presented by Northern Times editor Traci White.

New podcast: the economic impact of Brexit

Date:23 November 2018

Professor Bart Los and fellow researchers were recently awarded best paper for their research on the mismatch between local voting and the local economic consequences of Brexit. In short, they discovered that areas with the strongest leave vote were likely...

Econ 050 is now available on iTunes, and is a collaboration between the Faculty of Economics and Business and The Northern Times

Introducing a faculty podcast: Econ 050

Date:16 November 2018

The faculty now has a podcast! It's called Econ 050, and you can subscribe now on iTunes.

Online price data can provide new results almost immediately.

Why economists need to use online shopping data

Date:12 November 2018
Author:Robert Inklaar and Marcel Timmer

How to compare people’s incomes internationally? How do economists assess which citizens are wealthiest, and which poorest, when costs differ all over the world?

Usain Bolt in Rome, Italy, by Steven Zwerink

The performance measuring crises in elite sports

Date:05 November 2018
Author:Gerard Sierksma

It has been observed in many sports that the level of competition has increased over the years to an extent that we can speak nowadays of a crises at the top of these sports. Not only the number of ex aequo game results is large, also the variation in...

Research suggests that having power increases accuracy in perception of bodily signals, a phenomenon known as interoceptive accuracy.

'Gut feeling' in powerful individuals

Date:29 October 2018
Author:Mehrad Moeini Jazani

In interviews and autobiographies, powerful people such as business magnates, well-known politicians, or high-ranked military commanders often emphasize the importance of relying on their gut feeling when making decisions. The question that comes to mind...

Sathyajit Gubbi is associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen, with expertise in internationalization and strategic transformation of firms from developing economies

Connected boards and cross-border mergers

Date:22 October 2018

Emerging market firms are increasingly visible in the global economy. A significant number of these emerging market firms expand to developed economies through cross-border acquisitions (M&A). For example, in 2007, the Tata Group of India obtained a 100...

Setting the bar high helps employees to enjoy their work, and actually enables them to be more creative.

More demanding targets make employees more innovative – and they actually enjoy it

Date:17 October 2018
Author:Bernard Nijstad, Bart Verwaeren and Yan Shao

If you want your company to become more innovative, it makes sense to set demanding targets for your employees. Setting the bar high helps employees to enjoy their work, and actually enables them to be more creative. It also pays to create a culture in...

Chun-Keung (Stan) Hoi is Professor in Accounting at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen and also teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. He researches tax avoidance, social capital, social responsibility, and corporate governance.

‘Social capital’ and its effect on corporations

Date:15 October 2018
Author:Chun-Keung (Stan) Hoi

In his Nobel Lecture in 1994, Douglass C. North emphasised that “institutions are the humanely devised constraints that structure human interaction. They are made up of formal constraints (e.g., rules, laws, constitutions), informal constraints (e.g.,...

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for including climate change and technological innovation in longterm economic theory and furthering research on sustainable growth.

The Nobel Prize stresses sustainable development

Date:10 October 2018
Author:Robert Inklaar

On October 8, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for their contributions to long-run economic development and the role of climate change (Nordhaus) and innovation (Romer). It is hard to overstate the importance of...

Marcel Beukeboom, Climate Envoy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, addresses the opening of FEB's academic year

Dutch envoy Marcel Beukeboom on balancing climate and the economy

Date:26 September 2018
Author:Celia Castañón Lagunes
Marcel Beukeboom, Climate Envoy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, addresses the opening of FEB's academic year
The crisis caused a significant increase in directive leadership behavior – managers were stricter, reduced autonomy  and exercised more control.

Leaders did react, but didn’t change | The effect of the 2008 financial crisis on leadership

Date:24 September 2018

This month is the 10th anniversary of the start of the 2008 financial crisis. The fall of  Lehman Brothers on 15 September 2008 impacted on the entire global business world, and was the trigger for  the so-called Great Recession. Economists have been...

Donald Trump on the campaign trail by Gage Skidmore

Trump vs China Part II: a self-defeating policy

Date:18 September 2018
Author:Steven Brakman, Harry Garretsen, and Tristan Kohl

Make America Great Again (MAGA) is key for Donald Trump’s agenda as president. An important part of his policies involves trade. With the mid-term elections approaching in November, Trump is stepping up his aggressive economic stance towards, in...

Rieneke Slager is Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen. Jeremy Moon is Velux Professor of Corporate Responsibility at Copenhagen Business School.

Three ways to integrate sustainability in business schools

Date:06 September 2018
Author:Rieneke Slager and Jeremy Moon

Bring sustainability into the business school mainstream by aligning with schools' existing practices: technical, political, and cultural.

Jana Oehmichen is Professor of Organization and Management Studies at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

New professor Jana Oehmichen: a strong reputation for research drew me to Groningen

Date:05 September 2018

Intrigued by the high quality of research as well as the multidisciplinarity at FEB, Jana Oehmichen decided to move from Germany to Groningen. She is appointed as a Professor of Organisation and Management Studies.

Rachel Gifford is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

New payment systems on medical specialists: a Q&A with Rachel Gifford

Date:22 August 2018

PhD Candidate Rachel Gifford investigates the perceived effects of different organisational models, including payment systems, of medical specialists on intergroup relations and collaborative behavior. Supervised by Eric Molleman (Organisational Behavior...

Manda Broekhuis is Professor of Professional Service Chains at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

Interview: an interdisciplinary approach to solving healthcare challenges

Date:08 August 2018

‘Look!’, Manda Broekhuis enthuses, ‘this is exactly what I’m talking about’. At the end of a fascinating conversation about the organisation and coordination of care processes, she points to a lovely glossy roadmap headed ‘Living with Us’. The poster...

Maarten Postma is Professor of Global Health Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

The global hunt for the best use of healthcare budgets

Date:01 August 2018

FEB recently welcomed Maarten Postma to the Economics, Econometrics and Finance department as Professor of Global Health Economics. Postma is Director of the SHARE Research Institute in which FEB, the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the UMCG...

Pioneering chemist Rosalind Franklin, who helped discover DNA, at work.

The economics of gender balance and the Rosalind Franklin Fellowship

Date:24 July 2018

The Rosalind Franklin Fellowship is an initiative by the University of Groningen to promote the advancement of talented female researchers. Aimed to redress gender imbalances within academia, the fellowship awards tenure-track positions leading to a...

Leading economist Thomas Piketty addressing students and staff of the University of Groningen in May.

Thomas Piketty on inequality and globalisation

Date:17 July 2018

Thomas Piketty visited the Faculty of Economics and Business to deliver the Maddison Lecture in Economic Growth and Development 2018 on May 23. An economics professor at the Paris School of Economics, Piketty became a global household name in 2014 when his...

Milena Nikolova is Assistant Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

How much will your spouse suffer if you become unemployed?

Date:10 July 2018
Author:Milena Nikolova and Sinem H. Ayhan

Unemployment can have damaging consequences for individuals and their families. Job loss often means lower income, increased poverty risk, and worse future employment prospects. Evidence from around the world shows that those who are unemployed have worse...

Jana Oehmichen is professor of organisation and management studies at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

How do expatriates influence employees’ ESOP participation?

Date:05 July 2018
Author:Jana Oehmichen

In the modern workplace, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are increasingly seen as important tools of employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity. They present an attractive investment opportunity for employees, who base their investment...

Donald Trump on the campaign trail by Gage Skidmore

The trade costs of 'making America great again'

Date:21 June 2018
Author:Steven Brakman, Harry Garretsen, and Tristan Kohl

The credo ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) was a key part of the US presidential campaign by Donald Trump in 2016. International trade was an important element of reasoning behind the MAGA slogan. According to Trump, the deficit on the US current account...

What do ING and Marlies Dekkers have in common?

The challenges of Business Model Innovation

Date:20 June 2018
Author:Thijs Broekhuizen, Tom Bakker and Theo Postma

What do ING and Marlies Dekkers have in common? Not much, at first sight. After all, ING, a Dutch bank, and Marlies Dekkers, a Dutch fashion house, operate in very different industries and apply completely different strategies. Through the lens of...

Niels Hermes is professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

Can microfinance institutions reduce poverty?

Date:05 June 2018
Author:Niels Hermes

The market for micro-finance is booming and cross-border funding for micro-finance institutions (MFIs) is increasing. It is important for microfinance institutions to show their effect in reducing poverty to maintain long-term interest of investors.

Rieneke Slager is an assistant professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen.

The value of dialogue on environmental, social and governance issues

Date:17 May 2018
Author:Rieneke Slager

There is growing attention to how companies engage with environmental, social and governance issues (ESG).  At the same time, institutional investors, such as pension funds, increasingly engage in dialogue with companies on these issues, but it has not...

Photo: Pillar Pedreira/Agência Senado

It takes $50 a month to convince people to give up Facebook

Date:26 April 2018

How much do people value Facebook? By about $50 a month, according to a recent study of 2885 people by economists at the University of Groningen and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Users value Google searches at $17,530 a year, email at $8,414,...

Jenny van Doorn is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen, and Peter Verhoef is a professor and Director of the University of Groningen Business School

Who pays for organic products?

Date:23 April 2018
Author:Jenny van Doorn and Peter Verhoef

Organic food production has become an increasingly salient issue. Retailers are increasingly focusing on organic products, and former US President Barack Obama funded a $50 million scheme to help farmers transition to organic methods. This reflects an...

Jacoba Oedzes

More self-management sounds good, but it does require the right leadership

Date:23 April 2018
Author:Jacoba Oedzes

Many creative organizations try to reduce formal hierarchy. They expect managers to take a less prominent role and their teams to be as self-managing as possible. In principle, this is not a bad idea, because a formal hierarchy can constrain creativity....

Bert Scholtens is a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen

Can risk-taking incentives in CEO pay lead to irresponsibility?

Date:16 April 2018
Author:Bert Scholtens

Is there a link between risk-taking incentives in CEO pay packages and corporate social irresponsibility? I studied this question together with colleagues from the universities of St Andrews, Essex, and Montreal. Our work recently published in The British...

Susanne Täuber and Marijke Leliveld

Greedy bankers and angry public equally hypocritical

Date:05 April 2018
Author:Susanne Täuber and Marijke Leliveld

Moral criticism can have a devastating effect on a business, as ING recently discovered. However, such criticism is difficult to predict, because an indignant public has double standards.

Pedro de Faria is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen

I can’t give everything away: how the importance of secrecy is dependent on a company’s visibility

Date:04 April 2018

Many companies make substantial investments in research and development activities with the objective of developing new technologies and, consequently, gaining a competitive advantage in the market. However, this competitive advantage is also dependent on...

Dr Anna Minasyan is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business

Aid-ing their influence: US aid and spread of economic ideology

Date:29 March 2018

To what extent do countries use foreign aid strategically to promote their economic principles? Past studies have found that aid may be used for strategic political reasons. During the cold war for example, the United States gave aid to neighbouring...

Bart Los is Professor of the Economics of Technological Progress and Structural Change at the Faculty of Economics and Business, the University of Groningen

Why students should care about the impact of Brexit

Date:28 March 2018

Professor Bart Los has been working with an international team on calculating what the impact of Brexit will be on different regions and industries. FEB Blog caught up with him to ask why students should pay attention to this research.

Robert Lensink is a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen.

Can business training reduce poverty?

Date:22 March 2018
Author:Robert Lensink

Is access to finance sufficient on its own to bring people out of poverty? Or is there a need for business training to complement financial access? In a recent paper we investigated this in a large micro-finance institution, Tao Yeu May, in Vietnam.

Associate professor Richard Jong-A-Pin and assistant professor Rasmus Wiese, who wrote the paper with Professor Jakob de Haan.

Successful fiscal adjustments can also be achieved by raising taxes

Date:20 March 2018

Since fiscal policies in several countries across the world have become unsustainable, it has become inevitable that governments should reduce their indebtedness. Consequently, policy debates no longer focus on the question whether government indebtedness...

Floor Rink

Explicitly mentioning business identity increases confidence in an alliance

Date:19 March 2018
Author:Floor Rink

It is seen as the way for organizations to strengthen their market position, acquire knowledge and become more innovative: an alliance with a partner. Alliances can have many advantages, but organizations do not always benefit from one. Experience has...

Jan Willem Bolderdijk

Meat free week - a recipe for change

Date:13 March 2018
Author:Jan Willem Bolderdijk

Climate change and animal welfare are a cause for concern for many Dutch people. They realize that their daily portion of meat isn’t really helping on either front. And yet we (and that includes me) have not signed up in droves for the National Meat Free...

Yingjie Yuan

How can companies best encourage employee creativity?

Date:08 March 2018

Assistant professor Yingjie Yuan explains her research in management and organisation psychology in this new video.

Bart Los is Professor of the Economics of Technological Progress and Structural Change

What would a no-deal Brexit mean for the UK?

Date:01 March 2018

Is no deal really better than a bad deal? Economists at the University of Groningen's Faculty of Economics and Business used our databases of trade flows between European regions to find out.

Ward Romeijnders is an Assistant Professor within the department of Operations at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen.

Interview: Ward Romeijnders on planning for the unknown

Date:26 February 2018

Assistant Professor of Operations Ward Romeijnders was awarded a Veni grant  for his project, “Planning for the unknown. Towards optimal decisions under uncertainty.” These personal Veni grants are worth up to a maximum of €250,000 and enable talented...

Assistant Professor of Economics Artūras Juodis

Interview: Artūras on economic shocks

Date:19 February 2018

Assistant Professor of Economics Artūras was awarded a Veni grant  for his project, “ We do not live in a bubble: economic shocks in misspecified panel data models ”. The personal Veni grants are worth up to a maximum of €250,000 and enable talented...

Marijke Leliveld and Hans Risselada

Interview: Marijke Leliveld and Hans Risselada on collaborating to study charity giving

Date:12 February 2018
Author:Riepko Buikema

A good bottle of wine with an unusual label stands proudly on the table. It says ‘Cheers!’, followed by a summary of an academic article. The message couldn’t be clearer. Marijke Leliveld and Hans Risselada have something to celebrate. Their...

Yingjie Yuan is an Assistant Professor in Management and Organisation Psychology at the Faculty of Economics and Business.

Interview: Yingjie Yuan on how firms can manage 'star' employees

Date:07 February 2018
Author:Yingjie Yuan

After spending time in the Netherlands for her PhD, Yingjie Yuan spent several months at Penn State University, only to come back to the Netherlands. She accepted a position as Assistant Professor in Management and Organization Psychology and started her...

Robert Feenstra is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, and holder of the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Chair in International Economics.

Interview: Robert Feenstra on tracking global economic milestones through data

Date:02 February 2018

Robert Feenstra is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, and holder of the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Chair in International Economics. He gave a keynote address on ‘The ‘China Shock’ in Trade Reconsidered’...

Dirk Pilat is Deputy Director of the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation at the OECD

Interview: the OECD’s Dirk Pilat on the importance of data

Date:29 January 2018

Dirk Pilat is Deputy Director of the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation at the OECD. Prior to his work at the OECD, he earned his PhD in economics in 1994 at the University of Groningen. He spoke at the GGDC Conference 2017 on the OECD’s...

Ingvild Almås, NHH Norwegian School of Economics and IIES, Stockholm University

Interview: Ingvild Almås on what microdata can teach us about economic inequality

Date:22 January 2018

Ingvild Almås is a professor at the Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), and currently a visiting associate professor at IIES, Stockholm University. Almås’ research focuses on economic inequalities. She delivered a paper on...

Eddy Szirmai, Bart van Ark, Marcel Timmer, and Rainer Fremdling at the GGDC 25th Anniversary Conference

25 years of telling the story of the world economy through data

Date:15 January 2018

The Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC) was founded in 1992 within the Economics Department of the University of Groningen. It recently marked 25 years since its founding, with a jubilee conference on the themes that have long been key to the...