2019

In the latest episode of Econ 050, assistant professor Christiaan van der Kwaak explains why the Eurozone, the 19 EU states that use the euro, still contains fundamental flaws that fuel political opposition to the union.

A recent scandal shook Blizzard Entertainment, an American company best known for video games such as World of Warcraft or Hearthstone. After winning the finals of Blizzard’s official Hearthstone tournament in Taiwan, player Chung Ng Wai openly voiced...

'Public health is not a spectator sport': in the latest episode of podcast Econ 050, associate professor Jochen Mierau explains why the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health has been founded to bring together doctors, economics, patients and...

What is the most effective way that charities and companies can work together to encourage donations to non-profit organizations? A group of scholars and fundraising practitioners gathered in Groningen to consider this question at a cause marketing and...

Microcredit was a major buzzword in the world of development aid in recent years, being breathlessly praised as a breakthrough panacea. But in the latest episode of podcast Econ 050, Professor Robert Lensink of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the...

The faculty's own Professor Floor Rink has been nominated for the HRtop100, an award that celebrates leaders in the field of human resources. The prize is decided by vote, so every ballot counts. You can click this link (no longer available) to vote for...

YouTube, Netflix, Google, Facebook – these digital platforms and services have all become seemingly indispensable – and inescapable - parts of modern life. But how much do users truly value ostensibly free online services? How much would it be worth to...

The Netherlands sees itself as an extremely equitable country, which is not entirely without cause: it was one of the first in the world to legalize gay marriage and provides at least some paternal leave. But when it comes to achieving genuine equality in...

Door: Steven Brakman (hoogleraar Economie, RUG), Charles van Marrewijk (hoogleraar economie, Universiteit van Utrecht)

For young professionals in particular, starting a new job can feel like grasping in the dark. The uncertainty of trying to figure out your place in a complex work environment can become very stressful very quickly. You may feel like you have to say “yes”...

Welcoming speakers and chairs from over 20 countries, the 17th Gender Summit took place on 2-4 October in Amsterdam. It offered a great podium for the sharing of the latest research and developments on gender balance in Academia. Susanne Täuber had been...

Being an immigrant, a teenage mother or a child born into poverty can dramatically impact your health throughout your entire life. The Netherlands is perceived internationally as an equitable country with a thriving middle class, and that is mostly true,...

Financial security is not the only measure of the welfare of a population. Safety, access to housing, medical care and education are just as important to your sense of well-being. But on a regional level, those can be somewhat misleading indicators: it was...

A paper on team membership dynamics in the workplace by a group of researchers from the Faculty of Economics and Business was recently named "one of the three best papers published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior last year". The paper explored...

Ikle Bakir is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen, who works on transportation and logistics, supply chain management, stochastic optimization, large-scale linear and integer programming.

What is the difference between lobbying and buying influence? Since 2002, it has been legal in the United Kingdom for sitting politicians to hold board positions at private companies, and serve on committees or propose legislation that could directly...

It’s a happy day for Felix Eggers: years of research has come to fruition with research results published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Thijs Broekhuizen, Erzsi Meerstra-de Haan, and Florian Noseleit are to take part in the PASSPARTOOL initiative to assess and improve soft innovation policies. This 30-month project, funded by Interreg Europe (total sum: €1.6M, sum UG: €124K), aims to...

There are thousands of internationals living in Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland, many of whom came to the region for their careers. How can they be fully integrated into the economic life of the northern Netherlands?

Are elderly people more comfortable with technology if it speaks their language? That's the question Professor Jenny van Doorn will examine in a new project awarded €50,000 in funding from the Idea Generator programme of the Dutch National Research Agenda...

Despite long working hours and high work pressure, entrepreneurs and the self-employed frequently boast high job satisfaction, Milena Nikolova writes in an article about her research for Washington-based non-profit organisation The Brookings Institution.

The University of Groningen has climbed close to the top of world rankings in Economics, Business Administration and Management, demonstrating the strength of the Faculty of Economics and Business in education globally.

Natural gas has been the Netherlands’ blessing and Groningen’s curse in recent decades. Even as quotas are reduced ever further, earthquakes induced by natural gas extraction continue to jolt the province on a nearly daily basis. But the country and the...

Measles were effectively eradicated in much of the western world decades ago, yet the potentially fatal disease has made a fierce comeback in America and Europe due to growing anti-vaccination movements. What are the health costs of enforcing sufficient...

What will the northern Netherlands look like in the future? Will it become the next Silicon Valley – and is that something we actually want to become? The tech industry is one of the region’s growing strong suits, but what does that really mean for job...

One of the main premises in the study of Public Choice is that politicians may serve other interests than the general interest. A prime example is the phenomenon that incumbent governments adopt expansionary fiscal policy in election years to increase...

Food is an integral part of cultural identity, and moving abroad can often mean finding yourself longing for your favorites from home and missing the social element of a shared meal. But a region’s food scene is also very much an economic and business...

Is there any truth to the claims that immigrants steal jobs from the native population? What is the balance of brain drain and brain gain among member states? Post-doctoral candidate Magda Ulceluse sorts truth from fiction when it comes to migrants, job...

The percentage of women in senior management positions is still rather low. In the Netherlands, a target of securing 30 percent of women in leading positions was legally set down on 1 January 2013 with the Management and Supervision Act (Wet Bestuur en...

What do the modern day Ivory Coast and the 19th century Netherlands have in common? According to research from the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, the size of their economies is virtually identical.

Since earlier this year, Nancy Kamp-Roelands is, by special appointment, Professor of Non-Financial Information, Integrated Reporting & Assurance. She sees this appointment as a bold, well-timed step on the part of FEB. “Although integrated reporting and...

Imagine you’re on the banks of a river, watching the white water rapids rage past you. You’re surrounded by a group of your closest friends who booked a rafting trip, but you’re scared. You are deathly afraid that the raft will tip over, and you’ve heard...

Climate change, one of the grand issues facing society today, is at its root a behavioural problem. We know what to do (e.g., drastically reduce carbon emissions) and have the tools to accomplish it (e.g., energy-neutral technologies, radical consumer...

Political connections offer significant benefits to companies in the United Kingdom, new research shows, illustrating how even in otherwise low-corruption countries having a politician on the board can pay off.

If climate change is global, why do so many countries, even those at direct risk of its consequences like the low-lying Netherlands, still seem to see it as a zero sum game? How can politicians, including those in the far right Forum for Democracy who won...

Among people aged between 50 and 65, diabetes significantly impacts perception about their ability to work. Research indicates the condition increased fear that health limits their ability to work, especially during the financial crisis.

Water management may not seem like an especially sexy topic, but in a country where about one-third of the ground is below sea level, it can be a matter of life or death. Water management has been a part of Dutch history since long before the Netherlands...

Several multinational companies (MNCs) have announced plans to reduce their activities in the United Kingdom. The uncertainties associated with Brexit are a common reason. These strategic decisions often imply the closure of subsidiaries and have immediate...

Changes in the structure of international trade have had little effect on the growth in global CO2 emissions. That is the conclusion of Professor Erik Dietzenbacher, based on data from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) for the period 1995-2008.

More egalitarian approaches to leadership that share responsibility and power are better for weathering an economic downturn, but when the financial crisis hit in 2008, the instinct of thousands of business owners around the globe was to cling to their...

Leadership is a much debated topic both in research and practice, even more so now with more calls for strong leaders on the rise. Janka Stoker and Harry Garretsen’s new book on the issue Goede leiders zweven niet (Taking hot air out of leadership) has...

In municipal elections across the north in 2018, left wing and local issue-based parties performed especially well. In the city of Groningen, there was a far left swing: the liberal D66 party had the biggest share of votes before election day, but the...

Researcher Julia Storch is on a mission to understand the decision making that governs what ends up in our shopping baskets. It's all part of trying to solve a challenge on a world scale. "We have a global obesity epidemic. Some people even talk about a...

Managers' confidence in investing in Britain collapsed between 2013 and 2017, new research has shown.

Housing for students in Groningen in particular has gotten a lot of attention in recent years. But issues at the very top of the property ladder are one of the biggest reasons why many people across the north are struggling to find affordable housing even...

P.K. Kannan of the University of Maryland has been named Professor by Special Appointment of Digital Business & Analytics at the FEB and he will participate in the Groningen Digital Business Center. His research is on the frontier of how data and digital...

The new “green” grocer: Why is it so hard to get people to make greener purchases? Associate marketing professor Jenny van Doorn explains in this new episode of podcast Econ 050 that vice and virtue play a role, but at the end of the day, many shoppers are...

What happens after natural gas extraction ends in the north? Professor Machiel Mulder explains who is making money from the industry and what the future holds for the region on a new episode of podcast Econ 050.

Since earlier this year, Nancy Kamp-Roelands is, by special appointment, Professor of Non-Financial Information, Integrated Reporting & Assurance. She sees this appointment as a bold, well-timed step on the part of FEB. “Although integrated reporting and...