TImag15-spring2007 by Tinbergen Institute

tinbergen institute

magazine 15

Spring 2007

20 years tinbergen institute

Tinbergen Magazine is published by Tinbergen Institute, the Institute for economic research of Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Universiteit van Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

1983

1984 1985

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

In this issue 1. Preface

1986 Preface

March 3, 1986: Faculties of Economics of EUR, UvA and VU oﬃcially announce their intention to establish Tinbergen Institute 1986, First eight TI PhD students appointed at EUR

1987

1988

2. Marriage of inconvenience

March 19, 1987: Tinbergen Institute founded (agreement signed by university boards).

1989

1990 Location, location,

1991

1992

June 12, 1987: oﬃcial opening of the Institute; speech by Jan Tinbergen. October 4, 1990: ﬁrst TI PhD thesis defense

3. Location, location, location

location

January 21, 1992: opening of Rotterdam location: Visser ’t Hooft huis; speech by Jan Tinbergen

1993

May 30, 1994: opening of Amsterdam location; speech by Jan Tinbergen

1994

1995 1996

1997 1998

1999 2000

June 9, 1994: death of Jan Tinbergen

4. Under construction

2003

20042005 2006

2007

November 23, 1995: one-hundredth TI PhD thesis defense

5. Criteria for TI research fellows: a short history

December 5, 1996: Tinbergen Institute accredited as a research school by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

6. TI - today and beyond

today and beyond 19

September 16, 1999: two-hundredth TI PhD thesis defense

2001

2002

June 25, 2001: re-accreditation by the KNAW November 29, 2002: three-hundredth TI PhD thesis defense

7. Letters from alumni

References

September 1, 2003: transformation into formal two-year MPhil program August 1, 2005: ﬁrst (formal) MPhil thesis defense

June, 19, 2006: re-accreditation by the KNAW

February 23, 2007: four-hundredth TI PhD thesis defense

8. References

2008

2009

2010 2

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Preface

s p e c i a l

This special issue of Tinbergen Magazine celebrates the 20th anniversary of Tinbergen Institute. Such an occasion seems to call for a look back and also a look ahead. How did it all start? Did mainly external forces, such as the change in the legal status of people in the Netherlands working with a university on their PhD research, lead to the creation of the institute, or were internal motivations also important? What was it like, in those early days, to be a fellow or a PhD student associated with TI? After the creation of the institute, years of turbulence lay ahead. Where should the institute be housed? Should there be one or two locations? Could we cover the whole range of sub disciplines that are part of the economic sciences and still harbour ambitions to become the centre of excellence in the Netherlands over that entire range? Or, should we focus on a few interrelated research themes? How would we go about selecting fellows, and what would be the role of education in TI? Looking back at how we tackled all of these weighty issues, we might be pardoned for saying that the present situation is rather calm and quiet– or might some important changes be seen looming on the horizon? The editorial board of Tinbergen Magazine thought it would be interesting to trace these developments and to devote a special issue to the history of TI. The first hurdle was in deciding how to go about creating such a special issue. Where could we get the information we needed, how should it be selected, and who should we interview? As quite a few arrangements in the early days were only informally agreed upon, a number of inconsistencies could be detected in the information we received via interviews and through the brochures we discovered in the archives. In the process of separating fact from fiction, wheat from chaff, we discovered that there is a grain of truth in the old proverb “success has many fathers”– and in TI’s case also one or two mothers. Being part of an institute also means sharing part of the history. I hope this special issue provides an interesting perspective on all of the formal and informal events that took place in the past 20 years. May you as a reader enjoy reading the magazine as much as we in the editorial board enjoyed making it!

Maarten Janssen Director TI

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Marriage of Inconvenience Desert-like ’60s and ’70s

Start of Tinbergen Institute:

There are two sides to every story, and

Around the time of TI’s inception, the academic climate in the Netherlands was barren- at least for economists. Bernard van Praag recalls that in the late sixties, very few economists in the Netherlands produced research to international standards. In fact, some full professors did not even hold a doctorate. There were assistant professors that would obtain a doctorate around their 60th birthday, while some others didn’t even bother. Part of the explanation is that PhD candidates were often appointed as assistant professors and were expected to complete their dissertation next to their teaching duties. Added to the absence of time was a clear lack of incentives: after all, when one had secured a position at a Dutch university, it was virtually impossible to lose it again. The quality and output of research were consequently low.

signing the cooperative agreement (March 19, 1987)

the story of the early years of Tinbergen “You have no idea what

From left to right: A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan (EUR), J.A. van

Institute is no exception. Tinbergen

Kemenade (UvA), and P.J.D. Drenth (VU).

the ’70s were like”

Institute’s raison d’être depends on whom you ask: for its ﬁrst managing director, Annemarie Rima, TI was born as a school that aimed to streamline the education of struggling PhD students. For Bernard van Praag, chair of the ﬁrst board of directors of TI, the institute was meant to provide a centre for academic excellence, destined to salvage economic research in the

Dutch academic economic discours revolved around national aﬀairs. Frans van Winden (who served on the ﬁrst board of directors and played a role in the committee that prepared the founding of the new institute) recalls that hardly anyone at the Dutch universities had or felt the need to develop a systematic research program– let alone one that would make a dent on the international stage. No surprise, then, that there was also no systematic or coherent PhD program. Annemarie Rima recollects that training for PhD candidates was non-existent before TI was founded. Only the supervisor of the PhD candidate would sometimes worry about his or her education.

Netherlands. All of this changed, however, in the second half of the ‘80s. The primary impetus was the new “Assistant in Opleiding” (AIO) system that was introduced by the Dutch Ministry of Education as part of a change in the Higher Education Act in 1986. Roel In ‘t Veld, Director General at the Ministry of Education, played a leading role in this development, which aimed to revolutionize the academic system in the Netherlands.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

As more changes in the Dutch educational system have to do with money, with the new system came the inevitable pay-cut for PhD candidates. In exchange, the PhD candidatesnow formally called “second phase students”were promised a brand-new educational track. The new PhD track, which was meant to follow the Dutch “doctoraal” examination, formally introduced education for PhD candidates. Part of the new system was the emergence of AIO schools: institutes aimed at furthering the education of PhD candidates. TI was one such school. Another well known school, and competitor of TI, was CentER in Tilburg, founded by Arie Kapteyn– ironically enough, a former student of Bernard van Praag, just like Frans van Winden was.

“When I think of the early days of Tinbergen Institute, I think of many meetings and skyrocketing telephone bills.”

A pre-arranged marriage The oﬃcial goal of Tinbergen Institute was thus to provide the infrastructure for the new educational system, and it was Annemarie From left to right: Carien de Ruiter, Annemarie Rima and Miep Oomes: “The team that makes it all work”.

Rima’s job to set up the procedures and educational program. She laughingly boasts that everything she changed was for the better– as there was nothing arranged in the first place! The fresh institute provided an environment where the PhD students could meet, exchange ideas, take courses and even train “social” skills– apparently a euphemism for the research skills that Dutch doctoraal students sorely lacked. But according to founding father Bernard van Praag (then professor of Mathematical Economics at EUR), there was an important additional agenda. A small group of people was becoming increasingly worried about the quality of Dutch economic research (though EUR’s Econometric Institute was already highly regarded). Seizing the opportunity offered by the new rules laid out by the Ministry of Education, they established a centralized outlet for research and modernized academic life in the Netherlands. Part of the new infrastructure of TI was that PhD projects would now be supervised by more than one professor, and this provided some degree of control over the quality of research that was associated with the institute. More importantly, the founding fathers of TI, under the pretext of “efficiency gains” in the training of PhD students, managed to get the three ‘Randstad’* universities (EUR, UvA and VU) to cooperate under one umbrella. A dowry of 2.5 million Dutch guilders from the Ministry of Education undoubtedly helped to spark the love between them. The nuptial arrangements, however, did not proceed smoothly. The process of founding TI began in late 1985, and culminated in the signing of a treaty of cooperation between the three universities in 1987 (with retroactive power to 1986). But this was not the end of the story: in 1988, the board of directors still found themselves trying to sell the idea of TI as a research institute to the faculties of the individual universities. Much of TI’s early days are coloured by the efforts of TI’s founders to get the institute off the ground. It was Frans van Winden’s task to sell the new institute to the UvA. Frans likened this early period to playing “simultaneous chess”. The three universities involved seemed to be rather distrustful of each other, and the remaining economics faculties in the Netherlands felt threatened by the idea that the Randstad universities were bundling their

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Jo Ritzen, Minister of Education and Sciences (1989-1994) and Jan Tinbergen attending the opening of the Visser ’t Hooft building (1993).

resources. On top of this, some researchers at the UvA felt betrayed by the fact that faculty members of their own university were involved in founding an institute aimed at bundling powers with the UvA’s competitors. It was whispered that the founding of TI was some sort of “mission impossible”. It was, in any case, a difficult mission: the founding fathers had to find the right balance to deal with a mixture of distrust, desire for efficiency gains, and a widespread

Boat trip organized by TI: Annemarie Rima and students.

wish to retain the “egalitarian” academic climate in the Netherlands. Ironically, one of the outcomes of this process was the founding of NKE (now NAKE), a nationwide network of economics faculties aimed at providing courses to PhD students. This step effectively outsourced the “core business” of the newly founded institute– the training of PhD students– to a different entity. At the same time, there was a widespread fear that a significant amount of discretionary power over research was transferred from the participating universities to the new institute’s board. Nevertheless, a significant amont of money was destined for the institute’s funding and hence was placed beyond the control of the three universities. Since Rotterdam officially performed (and still performs) the role of “secretary” in TI’s organizational structure, the move was widely perceived at the UvA as a “sell-out”. Frans characterized the almost weekly meetings in this period as highly emotional and extremely time consuming: “It took almost five years to get the institute going. Nowadays, it would be inconceivable that a full professor would devote such a significant portion of his time to the founding of an institute without being compensated for it.” The struggle was reflected at all levels in the institute’s structure. The board of

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

directors of TI was neatly divided over the three participating universities, relative to their respective scales (3 from EUR, 2 from UvA, 1 from VU), while positions on the governing body were divided equally over the three universities– a constellation that aimed to mimic the United States’ House of Representatives-Senate arrangement. Annemarie Rima spent a significant part of her working life travelling between the different universities, since she spent two days a week at the UvA, two at EUR, and one at the VU. The founders’ wish of a physically centralized location has not been realized to this date: “The problem was, and to a certain extent still is, the scattered location”. This last quote also highlights the importance attributed by Annemarie Rima, Bernard van Praag and Frans van Winden to TI as a locus of scientific cooperation. This is also the aspect of TI that perhaps contrasts most starkly with the situation as found before its inception, when university life in the Netherlands was much more hierarchical, de facto divided by informal Chinese walls, behind which professors at Dutch universities feverishly guarded their own little scientific backyards– sometimes even forbidding their students to cooperate with others, lest they would get “strange ideas”. All that were involved in the founding of Tinbergen Institute single out the aspect of cooperation and centralization as one of the primary goals of the institute, and both a necessary and a main factor in its success. Indeed, with respect to the new educational environment, the early days of the institute were characterized by an atmosphere of cooperation– not only that of reluctant cooperation between the three founding departments of economics, but also with other, looser networks such as the NKE, and networks in the fields of other social sciences. PhD students were also required to have two supervisors from two distinct universities. Annemarie recalls that students and supervisors were pleased with the new arrangement: supervisors regarded the new PhD track as supportive, and PhD’s basked in the new attention given to their education. Perhaps the fact that the AIO system was entirely new and imposed from outside played a role with the easy acceptance at this level. For PhD’s, it was

an inspiring environment. Reports ﬁltered back of “jealousy” from PhD students of non-participating institutions. The fact that PhD students slowly developed an esprit de corps would make possible the idea of TI as a research institute in later days.

Years of freedom While one of the objectives of Tinbergen Institute was to exert more control over PhD students and to monitor their progress better than before, students did actually have a lot of freedom. There was no predefined MPhil track, but courses were typically offered by NKE or other research networks. Students simply took the courses they liked best. In fact, it was felt that a narrowly defined program with stringent requirements would reduce the scope for cooperation with the other academic networks, and reduce the quality of the doctorate dissertation due to an excessive burden placed upon the students by requiring them to satisfy the educational requirements. And even the initial pay-cut might not have, ultimately, hurt so much: it was at least partly compensated in kind with food coupons for the canteen, distributed by compassionate TI staff. The PhD schools of the late ‘80s, however, with their “playground”-like atmosphere, were destined for extinction. Some five years after the inception of TI, these schools were transformed into research institutes, heralding a new era characterized by a shift to a more Anglo-Saxon orientation of the Dutch academic system. Reflecting on the changes that would follow, Annemarie Rima stressed the importance of cooperation in PhD education within the Netherlands: “It’s a pity to hear that this cooperation is now disappearing”. *The Randstad comprises the agglomerations of Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Location, location, location “The long corridor in the faculty building of the University of Amsterdam at the Jodenbreestraat looks slovenly. Posters, time schedules and hurriedly written notes have been stuck to the walls and the doors in a highly chaotic way. But, halfway the view changes. There, in the oﬃces of the Tinbergen Institute, (...) the walls are spotless and there is a spirit of eﬃciency.”

Rooms at the universities In the first years of its existence, Tinbergen Institute had only a couple of rooms at each of the universities. In Rotterdam, the secretariat at the 9th floor of the H-building was staffed by Carien de Ruiter, while in Amsterdam Miep Oomes divided her working hours between the VU and the UvA. At that time, the Economics department of the UvA was still residing at the Jodenbreestraat. Elfie Bonke: “I was working there for the development economics group. Miep Oomes’ room was diagonally across from mine. The PhD students met there occasionally to take a course, and to eat cake. Miep used to borrow my knife for cutting the cake, and that’s how I got to know the Tinbergen Institute.” It was this corridor that was visited by the reporters of a Dutch newspaper who wrote the above impression in October 1989. Their focus on the interior of the building was rather fortunate; a story about the exterior would certainly have been much less positive. The official name of the building at the Jodenbreestraat was Burgemeester Tellegenhuis (Mayor Tellegen house), but this was not very well known. Instead, everybody used to call it the Maupoleum, inspired by the name of the owner of the building, real estate developer Maup Caransa, and by its seeming resemblance to a mausoleum. It was 200 meters long, made of lots of concrete and commonly considered to be the most unattractive building in the city. Nobody mourned when in 1994– only 23 years after the building’s construction- the city council called for its demolition. When the actual demolition started, a newspaper reported that the boom caused by the demolition ball hitting the wall of the building for the first time could not be heard; the cheer of spectators had drowned it out. Two years earlier, the “UvA branch” of the Tinbergen Institute had already moved to Roeterseiland, together with the rest of the Economics department. The stay there did not last long, however. The board of directors had developed plans to transform TI from an institute that exclusively focussed on education for PhD students into a “fullfledged research school”. These ambitions implied a need for new accommodations, in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Visser ’t Hooft building

Working in the attic of the

TI Rotterdam (TIR) was ﬁrst to move to a larger accommodation. In July 1992 Erasmus

Keizersgracht building.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Visser’ t Hooft building.

The smell of fresh coffee TI used to hire a student to come to Keizersgracht for an hour or so every morning to collect and clean all the coffee cups and to make some new coffee. This went on for some time. But owing to some financial troubles, this practice of hiring a student was discontinued. Instead, you got a cup with your name on it, and you had to maintain it yourself. Many people didn’t really like this... The problem was not so much cleaning your own cup as the fact that it was nice to start the day with the smell of fresh coffee lingering in the air!

University purchased the Visser ’t Hooft building, located at the Oostmaaslaan, from the city of Rotterdam. Although the price was only 1 guilder (0.45 euro), the building had to be renovated to the tune of 1.5 million guilders. Named after the ﬁrst general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Visser ‘t Hooft building had been a gift of German churches to the city of Rotterdam in 1967. It was designed by the famous Dutch architects Rietveld and Van Dillen, and built by people of the German organization Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (Action Reconciliation Service

for Peace). This organization sent young German volunteers to countries that had been affected by World War II in order to “work there for peace through social services as a sign of atonement.” TIR moved into the building on 21 January 1993. Presiding over the official opening was Jo Ritzen, who had been affiliated to TI as a professor in Economics at EUR before he became Minister of Education. Nobel Prize winner Jan Tinbergen was guest of honour and gave a short speech as well. Afterwards, Frank den Butter (one of the directors of TI at that time) was asked to bring Tinbergen home. Finding Tinbergen’s house in The Hague, however, turned out to be a challenging task. It seems that den Butter did not really know the city, and Tinbergen, who was sitting in the back seat, spoke with such a soft voice that his instructions were rather difficult to understand. They had gotten almost completely lost, when Tinbergen suddenly saw the tram he used to take. Following the tram helped for a while, but then the tram entered a park where cars were not allowed to go. After some more ‘sightseeing’, they finally managed to locate Tinbergen’s house. This experience, fortunately, did not stop Tinbergen from returning to the Oostmaaslaan. A couple of months later he attended an exhibition organised about him and his work on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Party time (again) at Keizersgracht. Artwork by Amitai Tov in background.

The Visser ‘t Hooft building had in total six different floors. The first floor boasted a library, a kitchen and a dining room. Students could get dinner from the kitchen– but only when they had a signed permission slip. The staff of TIR very quickly made sure that a whole pile of these notes was available. The second floor contained a large seminar room, while the offices of the secretaries were on the third. The building housed around 30 PhD students, who had their offices on the fourth and fifth floors. The fifth floor also contained the offices of the professors. Herman van Dijk and Casper de Vries were working fulltime in the building, while Jan van Ours, in his function as director of graduate studies, came over from Amsterdam for two days per week. Elfie Bonke: “Van Dijk’s office was especially beautiful. You had an amazing view over the Maas River from there.” At the top of the building there was one more room, which was very small. TI students very soon began to call it the Japanese room: tall people could not stand up there.

Keizersgracht

Lunches There was this nice terrace at the Keizersgracht building. Actually, it was something like the roof of a single story room, and we were not really allowed to sit there. We could, though, get to this terrace by almost crawling through a particular window. It was well worth the eﬀort: this terrace somehow always managed to capture the few available rays of sunlight– and it was never windy! It was a great spot for sunny lunches, even when there was hardly any sun. A nice bakery could be found just around the corner– I remember going there with Pieter Gautier to get a sandwich. It was diﬃcult to get back to work after those sunny lunch breaks...

Plans to move were also developed in Amsterdam. Rather than having separate oﬃces at the VU and the UvA, TI Amsterdam (TIA) would get its own building. But, there was a political angle to it. Rick van der Ploeg: “It had to be at a neutral location. The UvA would not agree to a location close to the VU and vice versa. Then I thought: Perfect, in that case we’ll just take a building on one of the canals.” Not everyone was equally enthusiastic. Particularly at the UvA the reactions were rather sceptical. People believed that it was a waste to spend a lot of money on the accommodation, given that the department already had a deﬁcit at the time. Nevertheless, Janny Westra and Rick van der Ploeg devoted their Friday afternoons to searching for nice locations. In the end, a building at the Keizersgracht was chosen. Van der Ploeg: “At a given moment, the VU decided to agree. That really helped. The other two universities must have reasoned that if those frugal people at the VU agreed,

The safe Before TI moved into the building at the Keizersgracht, a bank had used it. Tangible evidence of the former occupant could be found in the cellar, which still had a safe. There we kept the PhD theses. I liked this symbolism: it was the perfect storage place for our ‘gold bars’!

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Christmas party Ah, the Christmas parties at Keizersgracht... Once, I had another party to go to, but thought of just dropping by at TI for Christmas drinks. But, the TI crowd was lively, and somehow I missed the train I had initially planned to take. They had a few drinks out at the beginning of the evening, but gradually replenished these from the storeroom. Everybody was having fun. Rick van der Ploeg had left TI by then, and was Deputy Minister of Culture. Even he dropped by and stayed on until really late. The storeroom was ﬁnally empty at 2.00 AM and the party was over. It had all been so engrossing that I even missed the last train!

then it must just be good.” And good it was. At least, it seems that Keizersgracht 482, more than any of the other buildings, has left an indelible memory behind. The number of anecdotes related to this period defies counting, and whoever has worked there and speaks about it has a touch of nostalgia in his/her voice. Of course, there are juicy stories associated with the Visser ‘t Hooft building as well– about guest professors, for example, who could not resist the temptations of the Dutch liberal drug policy and got completely stoned. But people in both Rotterdam and Amsterdam seem to agree: Keizersgracht was different. Various explanations have been put forward: the “better work ethics” of the students in Rotterdam, the more international environment in TIA, or the greater number of women at Keizersgracht. Rick van der Ploeg: “I think it had to do with the people. There were just some very colourful people around in Amsterdam at that time. But, it was of course also the building. It was a canal house; that’s different from an office building. I’m convinced that the physical ambiance makes a great difference.” The staff and students moved into the new building in August 1993, although the official opening took place much later, on 30 May 1994. Surprisingly, almost all students were absent that day; they had a NAKE course in Tilburg. Despite this, the number of guests was still too large for the seminar room at Keizersgracht. The Dutch National Bank therefore stepped in to host the official part of the ceremony. Jan Tinbergen again

attended the ceremony, even though his family had strongly advised against this. He gave a short speech about the competition between Amsterdam and Rotterdam and how the institute was a successful micro-example of the integration that is needed globally. It was his last public appearance. Only ten days later he passed away at the age of 91. After the conference, all those present made a canal trip by boat from the premises of the Dutch National Bank to the building at the Keizersgracht. There, Bank president Wim Duisenberg would officially open the building by launching 40 blue balloons, symbolizing the aim of science: to reach for the sky. Two complications arose, however. First of all, Duisenberg had his right arm in a sling, the result of a failed attempt to leap a ditch earlier that month. Secondly and more importantly, it seemed that one small but crucial thing had been overlooked in the event’s organisation: no pair of scissors was on hand. Frank den Butter desperately began to ask people in the audience whether, by any chance, they had one. A pair was finally found, and Duisenberg used his left hand to free the balloons, thereby opening the building. Like the Visser ‘t Hooft building, the Keizersgracht provided office space to about 30 PhD students. They did not have separate rooms, but each had a desk on a big floor. Rick van der Ploeg: “It was really good that the PhD students were sitting together. They could learn from each other. It’s useful for a macro-economist and an environmental economist to have lunch together, to go to the bar together, to go to the sauna together. From different disciplines, from different universities, everybody was talking to each other. That was quite unique for that time. Before, one became a PhD student under the supervision of a professor, and then one could not talk with other people. I had colleagues who said that they didn’t want their PhD student to talk to other professors. They would only get ‘strange ideas’ from that.” Several professors used to work at the Keizersgracht for one or two days a week. Among them were Gerard van de Berg, Jan Kiviet, Enrico Perotti, Frans van Winden and Geert Ridder. But, there were others. Elfie Bonke: “Mars Cramer also came two days per week. He categorically refused to sit in a professor’s room. Instead, he wanted to use one of the desks on the big floor, among the

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Crazy things Keizersgracht? Well, of course crazy things did happen there sometimes. Some people occasionally smoked joints. I remember that one day... No, I shouldn’t talk about that. He has become a respectable husband by now...

Oﬃcial opening of Visser ’t Hooft building: Jan Tinbergen and Herman van Dijk in the ‘room with a view’ (1993).

students. The interaction between him and the students was very nice. He helped them with their research, and they in turn helped him if he had a problem with his computer. Mars Cramer and Bas van der Klaauw had a special friendship. It was very nice to see the Nestor and the young lad working together.” The walls of the rooms in the building were decorated with art. Rick van der Ploeg initiated this project and chose the first artist; later, an art committee was established, consisting of Jolanda IJgosse, Miep Oomes and Govert Bijwaard. The project aimed “to have young and promising artists to show their work for some time in the building. Their work might be controversial, refreshing, new, and triggering debates, as to mirror the activities that take place in the institute.” The chosen paintings satisfied these criteria. First, there were the huge paintings by Amitai Tov. The most intriguing one, which is still discussed to this day, was certainly the picture showing a swastika. The painting contained “thousands” of razors, making touching it a painful and bloody affair. It was because of this that one of the universities protested against the painting, which eventually led to its being removed. The work of the second artist, Oleg Gotchev, was hardly less controversial. Although some were enthusiastic about it, others strongly disliked his “fairy-tale porn”.

Back to the campus and the Roetersstraat In November 1995, TIR left the Visser ‘t Hooft building and moved back to the university campus at the Burgemeester Oudlaan. The feelings were mixed. Rick van der Ploeg: “It was a beautiful and very

special building. I always really enjoyed going there. It’s a great pity that TI moved out.” On the other hand, nobody has ever missed the extremely high temperatures in the building during the summer or the complete lack of facilities: no mail delivery, no technical support, no provision of printing paper and pens. The Visser ‘t Hooft building was used by the philosophy department for a couple of years, but now it is empty. Erasmus University recently tried to sell it to a Freemasons’ lodge, but this resulted in protests from local politicians, claiming that it would not be in the spirit of the ASF. Also TIA moved. Although liked by almost everybody, the Keizersgracht building was far from ideal. The top floors could be accessed only by way of very steep stairs, and the electrical wiring repeatedly caused trouble. Plugging a laptop into a socket sometimes led to a complete shutdown of all of the computers. Most problematic, however, was the front door. It could be opened relatively easily from outside (from hearsay, even with an Albert Heijn bonus card), resulting several times in burglary or homeless people trying to spend the night in the building. At the end of 2002, TI moved to the new Gijsbert van Tienhoven building at the Roetersstraat, practically next-door to the economics department of the UvA. Again, political considerations played an important role. The price that UvA had to pay for having TI so close was that the new building of ACTA (the joint institute for dentistry of the UvA and the VU) would be built right next to the VU medical centre. The latest move was again in Rotterdam. In September 2005, TIR moved from the 16th and 17th floors to the 9th floor of the Hbuilding– indeed, the very same floor where it all started, exactly twenty years ago.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Under construction

In 1992 TI issued a brochure called Shifting into the nineties. It summarized TI’s achievements until that moment, and provided an impressive list of international guests and an equally impressive list with Board members and Directors during the years. The length of the latter list was due primarily to the multitude of Directors and Board members. The abundance of university representatives probably reﬂected the wish of the faculties to safeguard their position in TI and to keep a close eye on developments. It’s easy to see, with hindsight, that Tinbergen Carien de Ruiter cleaning the kitchen in the Visser ’t Hooft

Institute was in those days a ship with many captains, jointly responsible for the management and the course TI would take, but without responsibilities assigned to specific persons. A major change took place in 1993 with the appointment of Jan van Ours (professor of economics) as Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), and later as Scientific Director (in 1997). He was supported by Gregor Rensen, who was appointed as administrative director in 1992. The idea was to keep the Board members at a distance from the responsibilities of day-today management, and to leave control of dayto-day activities to the DGS and selected staff.

building.

Securing the foundation Jan van Ours devoted most of his time to structuring the educational program. Here’s his description of what TI’s educational program looked like when he arrived in 1993: “The teachers taught their courses voluntarily (....) and the PhD students attended the courses voluntarily.” (Or not, we are inclined to think!) And: “...... some PhD supervisors considered PhD students as collectors’ items....”. Jan van Ours decided to design a curriculum, not based on the courses oﬀered by teachers, but based on the needs of the PhD students. The main obstacle was, of course, the fact that TI had no budget for education and could only oﬀer the traditional

From the Christmas speech by Jan van Ours “Before the department awards real-life PhD students to supervisors, the supervisors should practice with tamagotchi* students” *Hand-held toys that were popular among children in the nineties. The toys needed regular care, or they would fall sick and eventually die.

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Exhibition about Jan Tinbergen and his work, 1993. From left to right: Jan Tinbergen, Albert Jolink (TI alumnus no. 4) and Jan Pronk, Minister of Development Cooperation.

Many of the persons involved with the pursuit of accreditation in those days considered the KNAW’s rejection as partly a result of personal animosities. But as one of the actors then involved now concludes: “(......) TI beneﬁted enormously from initially being rejected as a research school. (....) The process can be compared with submitting a paper. You think you submit a good paper to a journal, but the editor and referees do not agree, so you have to do a thorough revision and then resubmission. At the end of the process your paper has improved a lot. Of course, it’s only at the end of the process that you appreciate this.”

book voucher to teachers (75 guilders for delivery of a whole course of lectures). Regarding the PhD students, he decided to take the ‘dentist’ approach: he would make appointments with all PhD students and then decide whether further ‘treatment’ was necessary. A possible outcome was that the student’s supervisor had to be addressed for not providing proper guidance to the student. Suddenly, the PhD supervisors realised that they, too, were being monitored. Another initiative taken by Jan van Ours was organizing the regular PhD lunch seminars in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The greatest attraction: free lunches! Tinbergen Institute has kept these lunches in honour until today. In the meantime, a research pillar was developed for Tinbergen Institute, next to the PhD program. When in 1992 the Minister of Education, Jo Ritzen, former Director of

Tinbergen Institute, launched the idea of research schools, TI was considered to be an excellent starting point that could be transformed into a research school without too much effort. According to the definition of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), a research school ‘has a sound and institutionalised PhD program, and a research program that is clearly delineated and of outstanding quality’. In 1993, Tinbergen Institute applied for accreditation, but was rejected. Strange as it might seem today, the KNAW never had decisive criticism on TI’s educational program. Rather, the KNAW severely criticized TI’s research program: ‘no focus and of unstable quality’. Although this criticism led to some turmoil at the departments, it was not taken too seriously. The second application for accreditation was submitted to the KNAW in 1995– an update of the first one, but without major alterations. It was, again, heavily criticized by KNAW and had to be amended. Up to that moment, the intention had been to cluster the bulk of the research and researchers at the faculties under TI’s umbrella. Now, everyone became convinced that drastic measured were needed: TI’s research program was reorganized, and criteria for selection of research fellows were made more stringent

About facilities for PhD students: So many books were reimbursed that it was inconceivable that these were all read by PhD students.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

and consequently applied. Jan van Ours: “Herman van Dijk (as chairman of the TI board) and I spent one Sunday afternoon developing a new research structure. The whiteboard in the Amsterdam TI building was not very big, so we couldn’t write down more than four themes: institution and decision analysis, ﬁnance and international markets, labour region and environment, and econometrics”. This implied, however, that groups such as accounting and human resource management were excluded. The other TI board members agreed with the new narrow base for TI, as did, reluctantly, the deans and the economics departments. These four research themes– in many ways just a regrouping of the nine themes formulated before– are still at the heart of TI’s research program today. Finally, in 1997, Tinbergen Institute was awarded the long-sought KNAW accreditation.

Back on track

Christmas party at Keizersgracht, 1997. Jan Willem Gunning (left) and Jan van Ours seem to have a monopoly on the snacks.

In the early nineties, TI’s dedicated staff was small in comparison to the ambitions of the institute. The board consisted of passionate scientists who had little feeling for day-to-day affairs of the institute, and it would be easy to conclude that day-to-day affairs must have been very time consuming: two independent locations had to be staffed. Visitors entering the Visser ‘t Hooft building at that time had no receptionist welcoming them. They simply had to climb the stairs and call out to see if someone was there. A cook was hired to make coffee and lunches and to wash the dishes afterwards. It turned out later that he was hired without official appointment and that no taxes were paid. On top of all this, the complicated structure of Tinbergen Institute meant frequent and elaborate discussions with faculty representatives at all levels before any major decision could be made.

Former TI director Frank den Butter’s intention in the beginning was to choose research themes for TI that were related to the work of Jan Tinbergen. He also gave some thought to alternative names for the institute: ‘Tinbergen Research Institute of Policy and Development’, or TRIPOD in short, seemed an option. The name TRIPOD would symbolize the three founding universities as three pillars. But then one francophone colleague pointed out that in French ‘tripod’ stood for “a place where people play tricky games”. Back to square one.

In 1994 it became clear that TI had financial problems. The EU had awarded several grants to TI, which had been spent according to the aims of the grant, but without fulfilling the elaborate paperwork requirements for which the EU is known. PhD students did not have budgets as they do now, but got reimbursed whatever they managed to declare. The promised contributions of the economics faculties had not been remitted, and there was not even a list of PhD students associated with TI. Finally, TI kept almost no financial records, and none of the institute’s expenses were traceable. Something, obviously, had to be done. Hettie Pott-Buter was hired to reorganise TI’s financial household– a huge job involving negotiations with funding organizations, university boards and tax officers. Hettie succeeded at last in obtaining an audit certificate for the past years, and the faculties resumed payment of the contributions. In 1997, Tinbergen Institute seemed to be back on track: accredited by KNAW, a working governance structure and a dedicated staff that could handle the job.

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S h o r t

H i s t o r y

Criteria for TI research fellows Research school?

Tinbergen Institute’s

“An increasing number of

Honorary research fellows, 2006. From left to right:

economists prefers to work with

Henk Tijms, Mars Cramer,

nice mathematical formulas.

Teun Kloek, Bernard van Praag, Herman van Dijk

This leads to very abstract

and Jean Paelinck.

problems with elegant solutions published in very renowned journals, but which have nothing to do with reality. (...). At Tinbergen Institute we try to keep researchers close to reality. We think this is more important than to publish in high-brow journals.” In: MARE, April 26, 1990.

Bernard van Praag

In 1990, Frank den Butter, Rick van der Ploeg and Bernard van Praag oversaw the transformation of the TI graduate school into a “research school”. Research schools– in which departments and/or universities join forces to provide a graduate program combined with excellent research– were a new phenomenon in the Netherlands. TI had at the time something like a graduate program– at least there were some courses and workshops for PhD students, and the initiators were mainly occupied with the design of a research program and the selection of researchers from the departments. This resulted in 1992 in a separate institute called ‘Tinbergen Rotterdam-Amsterdam Centre for Economic Research’ (TRACE) with eight research themes and some 70 senior research fellows. Selection criteria for senior research fellows were rather lenient at this stage: holding a PhD and publications in international, refereed journals (or contributions in books). TRACE also had junior research fellows: PhD students who performed well in the graduate program. Theoretically, not all PhD students qualified for affiliation with TI.1 In 1992, Tinbergen-TRACE applied for NWO support and was granted Dfl 850,000 by the government as part of a national program to stimulate the formation of research schools. The name TRACE was dropped by the Board of Directors after this success, and was never heard of again.

On the road to KNAW accreditation... With confidence, the TI directors (Herman van Dijk had replaced Bernard van Praag) decided in 1993 to apply for accreditation as a research school at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and started to write the application report. This turned out to be more difficult than expected. Boards of the departments were heavily involved in the process, and the result was that all research at the departments fitted within the nine research themes of Tinbergen Institute and that finally some 125 (!) research fellows were selected. Selection criteria for research fellows were in theory strict, but were not always implemented, in order to meet the wishes of the departments. Selection criteria used: “... three publications in the past five years in international top journals (A-, B-, or international C-journals according to the

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The shortcomings of the VSNU list The VSNU list was a list of journals drawn up by the deans of the economics departments in the Netherlands in 1991 and in use everywhere until 2002. The list numbered some 1250 journals, ranked in the categories A-E in the ﬁeld of economics but also in many other ﬁelds: psychology, geography, etc. To name some: Journal of Food Quality (E), De Landeigenaar (the landowner) (E), Tropical and Geographical Medicine (D). There were some 60 A journals and 200 B journals. ‘International C’ comprised such journals as Applied Psychology, Zeitschrift für Verkehrswissenschaften (German) and the Public Opinion Quarterly. One can easily conclude that admission criteria for research fellows, even when strictly implemented, were still lenient in 1993.

VSNU ranking) or four publications in very good journals and in books published by internationally renowned publishing houses. (...) Exceptions have been made for research themes 2 and 62.” Research theme 2 was Finance, Information Systems and Accounting; research theme 6 Strategy and Industrial Economics. Under the argument that in these fields no generally accepted journal rankings existed, researchers qualified for admission to TI with only Dutch publications. KNAW rejected the application in 1994. Somethin’s gotta give In December 1995 TI submitted a new application report to the KNAW. Criteria for research fellows seemed to be absent altogether, according to the formulation: selection was based on “scientific output, measured by means of international publications”3. No longer were explicit minimum requirements for quality and quantity implemented. TI numbered still nine research themes and 118 research fellows. And again, the KNAW rejected TI’s application for accreditation. TI lodged an appeal against this decision. Drastic measures Drastic measures were needed in order to guide TI through the accreditation process. Finally, in 1997, KNAW granted TI the status of an official research school, based on a thoroughly revised research program with only four themes and 59 research fellows (half the original number). Requirements were now very strict: 3A or 2A + 2B publications or 5A/B publications in the past five years. Journal qualification was still based on the VSNU ranking4. Besides some minor adaptations, these admission requirements were grosso modo in force until 2002. Tackling the journal rankings It became obvious in 2001 that the committee composed of representatives from all economics departments that was working on a new journal ranking for the Netherlands would not succeed in its task. The Board and the Directors of Tinbergen Institute, Maarten Lindeboom and Coen Teulings, decided to compile a new journal ranking, meant only for TI and to be used only to consider the publication records of researchers applying for admission to TI as a research fellow. The new journal list came into being after elaborate discussions between senior researchers from the

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

PhD thesis committee.

departments, consultation of rankings used elsewhere, involvement of outside experts, and many, many lengthy board meetings. This procedure resulted in a new list that was limited to economics (no more agriculture and psychology), was limited to AA-, A- and B-journals (no longer the dubious D and E categories) and comprised fewer journals: five AA-, 29 A-journals and fewer than 100 B-journals. Formulas were designed to measure scientific output in points, and research fellows had to meet strict minimum requirements in quality and quantity in order to be granted the status of research fellow of Tinbergen Institute. It may be said here that although the status of fellow involves hardly any material benefits, many have sought it throughout the years. The new method of measurement came into force starting January 2003 for new applications, and was used to re-evaluate all research fellows in 2005 when TI had to apply again for official KNAW re-accreditation. Despite the fact that admission criteria were much higher, almost 100 researchers at the three participating departments qualified for research fellow status. Clearer proof of the

progress made in terms of research output by researchers aﬃliated to the departments participating in TI cannot be found!

1 Aanvraag inzake NWO Stimulans 1992 ten behoeve van TRACE, 1992 2 Aanvraag tot erkenning van het Tinbergen Instituut als onderzoekschool, 1993, p. 10 3 Aanvraag tot erkenning van het Tinbergen Instituut als onderzoekschol, 1995, Hoofdtekst p. 10 4 Aanvraag tot erkenning van het Tinbergen Instituut als onderzoekschool, 1996, Hoofdtekst p. 6-7.

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TI – today and beyond... “Tinbergen Institute now is a remarkably successful institution, but it seems to have spent a substantial part of its life in a very extended incubation period.”

Board of Directors: Maarten Lindeboom (DGS) and Coen Teulings (left).

It’s often said that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ We might venture to add to this that neither was it built by a single set of hands. In clearly more humble settings, the same can be said for our institute. Those who have come to know TI as it is today might be oblivious to the journey it has taken and thus unaware of the miles travelled by those who have built it. The road has been long, hard and often marked with confusion about the mission of the institute itself.

Some background In 1998, when Jan van Ours left TI, the seed of the graduate program had been planted— although many hurdles remained. His departure was followed by a change in the management, and Van Ours was replaced by Coen Teulings as the General Director of the institute in August and Maarten Lindeboom as the Director of Graduate Studies in November of 1998. The recognition of TI as a graduate school and a research institute had opened new possibilities, but the struggle for accreditation had left in its wake a host of uncertainties. Success was soon followed by failure and scepticism. First, TI’s eﬀorts to put past animosities behind by joining hands with its earlier competitor CentER, the economic research institute based at Tilburg University, to pursue a ten million guilder research grant was rejected by the NWO. Second, the more focused economic research and graduate training program of TI no longer included management, which had traditionally been one of the spheres of the Institute’s program. This separation

between economics and management was soon followed by the creation of the Erasmus Institute of Management (ERIM) at EUR. While TI was the economic research institute of EUR, UvA and the VU together, ERIM was the management research institute of the EUR alone. This sole venture by Erasmus also cast a shadow of doubt into the minds of some members in the other two participating universities of TI with regards to EUR’s future desire to continue participation in TI— a decision that would largely determine the future of the institute. After a brief spell of

“A funny thing was the hierarchical relationship between supervisors or professors and students in EUR and the other two Amsterdam universities. I talked to all of these students as the DGS. The students from EUR acted like they thought, ‘He is the DGS... I have to be serious!’; students from Amsterdam must have thought something like, ‘this Lindeboom guy is talking to me...’. But these are diﬀerences between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, I believe...”

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Peer review committee 2005. Committee members posing with students (from left to right): Torsten Persson, Dale Jorgenson, Robert Merton, David Hendry.

‘Sleepless in Amsterdam,’ however, EUR’s further investments into the development of the institute made its position rather clear. Although brief in duration, this spell of tension within the institute helped to put in place the distinction between Economics and Business— a separation reflecting the differences between the research agendas of TI and ERIM in Rotterdam. Unexpectedly, this turn of events emerged as somewhat of a blessing in disguise. In the words of Coen Teulings: ‘My strategy initially was to not give up the business field as long as possible, but to still try to make TI resemble a standard economics graduate school like in the US. So we had a separate business track as a part of the program. It didn’t work, though, and we focused on economics alone— which in the end was a lucky thing! If you have to create a whole new program, you’re lucky if you can focus on one thing!’

“For the game theory exam at the end of the ﬁrst block, I got up at 6:00 a.m. to take the train to Rotterdam. In the compartment I boarded, I found many of my TI classmates— each of them sitting with their Mas-Collels! That moment really sticks in my mind.”

The beginning of the research masters (MPhil) program in economics In terms of the oﬃcial acceptability, the beginning of the research masters program coincided with the signing of the Bologna Agreement in 1999 by 29 European countries. The Bologna process was aimed at creating a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe. The consequence of the Bologna accords for the Netherlands was a move away from the traditional four-year doctoraal program at universities to a three-year bachelors program followed by a one- or two-year masters degree. In this time of transition, and in the true spirit of ‘striking while the iron is hot,’ TI’s administration got the institute registered as a two-year masters program. Although the actual registration went rather smoothly, the outcome became rather more involved. As pointed out by Maarten Jansen, the current Director of the institute, the label of a masters program came in rather handy, as ‘earlier, most of the students were the regular four-year PhD students... That has completely changed in the last few years– now, in the ﬁrst year almost all students are enrolled directly at TI— the MPhil students’. Needless to say, this implied some shift in authority in terms of admission to TI away from the participating universities and to the institute. Put in the words of Arianne de Jong, who has been at TI since 1997: ‘That was quite a transformation!’

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

In terms of how the program itself is structured, the pre-accreditation years were marked with some degree of ambiguity. The situation was summarized by Jan Willem Gunning, one of the directors of TI at the time of the accreditation. This is how he put it: ‘For a long time it was not clear what exactly TI was supposed to do, and whether it could become an attractive alternative to the NAKE network. For one thing, TI had given less thought to what a PhD teaching program should look like than NAKE, and the courses that TI oﬀered were rather heterogeneous in terms of quality.

New TI location in Amsterdam: Roetersstraat 31. Roetersstraat 31. Tinbergen watching a PhD student at work.

The governance structure was ineﬀective because the three participating economics departments were not at all sure whether they should give the institute much room for manoeuvring. They suspected TI of wanting to become a separate institution, and nervously watched for any sign of independence. This led to an unwieldy organizational structure. For example, I had been appointed as Board member representing the VU, but decisions by the TI Board were frequently overturned by the faculty boards.’ But things began to change rather suddenly in the post-accreditation years. The question, however, remains: why? Since an American-style PhD program was clearly the road less travelled in Europe, this change might have been quite unacceptable to many. One appealing explanation would be the coming together of like-minded, excellent professors— all of whom had been inspired by their colleagues and students in top American graduate programs and had come to share a clear vision of a two-year graduate training program along the same lines. Maarten Lindeboom, however, suggested a more mundane explanation: ‘Largely, they (the faculty at the three economics departments) realized that this kind of program had advantages for them as well. They were getting good students through it... People support such joint initiatives as long as they know that there is something in it for them... and that is basically what happened!’

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“I was the only student in Rotterdam in my cohort. TI was on the 16th floor, but for the MPhil students there was this office on the 8th floor— a strange place with shelves full of math books from the 1950s. I used to go there to work on my own everyday... hour after hour struggling with the homework assignments. When I got really stuck I would call the big office at TIA— 020 551 3548 — I still remember the number! Helpline! Every time I called I got one or another of my classmates. I later heard that whenever that phone rang everybody in the office knew that I was stuck— AGAIN!”

that none of the departments could have achieved individually’. Like all success stories, the success of TI’s MPhil program is the culmination of many things coming together in the right way. In this case it was the good quality and well planned courses, and the outstanding students who participate in them. The latter is the outcome of raised entrance requirements and a more rigorous admissions procedure over the last few years. The high standards set by TI have made it very attractive for outstanding students from both the Netherlands and abroad. The institute is increasingly able to be highly selective, since it has acquired an excellent reputation: TI has become a brand name!

TI as a research institute Whatever the driving force might have been, the convergence of the vision of a few and the self-interest of others led to the start of a one-year MPhil program in September 1999. Although the intention was to start with a two-year program, a conventional mindset eventually thwarted these plans. It was only in 2003 that the initial plan of the two-year research masters program was ﬁnally put in place. As it happened, it became a ‘majority rules’ situation. Unexpectedly, the tri-university structure of the institute came to the rescue. Coen Teulings: ‘in every discussion, at least one of the universities opposed the decisions of the TI directors! Coalitions changed all the time, but with the ‘majority’ support of two out of the three faculties, and with the backing of the three deans, TI went ahead!’ After all these years of uphill struggle, the MPhil program today is ‘a well-structured teaching program at an international level. The MPhil showed that TI was setting very high standards and that it oﬀered something Half of TI’s student population comes from abroad

Given that TI is not only a graduate school in economics but also a research institute, it cannot merely bask in the glory of its successful graduate program. The realization that the quality of the research institute depends on the worth of its researchers also dawned upon the management of TI in the early postaccreditation years. Previously, the criteria for TI fellows were based on publications in journals that were catalogued in a common list recognized by all Dutch universities. This list, however, was not up to the international standards, as it ranked highly several very specific field journals, and also gave a lot of weight to publications in Dutch journals. But those in charge of TI seemed to have different ideas. Initiated by Coen Teulings, a new list of journals was compiled that emphasized the importance of publications in top international journals, and consequently lowered the relative importance of publications that were earlier quite valuable. As with any change, this alteration in the fellow criteria naturally elicited mixed responses. Maarten Lindeboom:

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

First TI graduation day (2001): Maarten Lindeboom addressing the new MPhil graduates.

‘The changed list encouraged faculty and students to focus on top journals. For an institute as a whole it’s better to have some people writing in Econometrica than in.... and that has turned out to be ridiculously successful.’ Ringing a slightly diﬀerent tone, Rick van der Ploeg, also a former director of TI: “It should be the ambition of every fellow of the Tinbergen Institute to publish in the top ﬁve journals, and also a requirement to get a chair. However, the ranking of fellows on the basis of counting citations and publications has become terribly objective. This has gone at the expense of reading the work of excellent young researchers that is not yet published. And the importance of teaching, and of contributions to the public debate should not be forgotten, either. All three criteria– research excellence, teaching and relevance– are crucial for a top academic. Nobel laureates like Jim Mirrlees, or super-relevant guys like the wellknown Oxford development economist Paul Collier, or the CPB deputy director Casper van Ewijk wouldn’t otherwise have a chance.”

three institutions begins to push their own separate agendas’, others conjecture that this very structure– strangely enough– could eventually be a binding factor, keeping the institute together. As Coen Teulings suggests, ‘The coalition of the three universities safeguards the institute against some individual dean who might regard unfavourably some of the measures taken by TI– a situation that might, in the absence of support from others, put the institute under substantial pressure.’ The cautionary tone expressed above was echoed in the comments of the review committee, appointed by TI for its KNAW appraisal in 2005. This committee of internationally renowned economists, chaired by Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University, undertook the assessment for the purposes of TI’s re-accreditation. Despite missing research plans, the re-accreditation went very well and resulted in a further six-year accreditation of TI. The committee’s review, while positive, was also perceived as challenging:

What lies ahead? The hallmark of international success is unity in diversity– and this is reiterated in TI as well. Despite some diﬀerences, there does seem to be agreement on what will secure the institute’s future. Jaap Abbring, the current DGS of the institute, voices the general opinion when he says, ‘the MPhil program itself...its success.... secures its future’. Furthermore, while there are some like Maarten Jansen who believe that the tri-university structure could be a potential threat to the stability of TI in the future– in case history repeats itself and ‘each of the

‘It (the Jorgenson committee) also indicated where the next challenge lies. TI fellows and students now publish in the best journals, but compared to the international top we still have some way to go in terms of impact: our inﬂuence in academic and policy arenas. (Jan Tinbergen, of course, had enormous inﬂuence in both.) We should, perhaps, become slightly less obsessed with where our work is published, and focus a bit more on whether it changes people’s minds.’

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But other onlookers look to the graduate program to lead the way forward. This school of thought sees further potential of the graduate program in raising the international reputation of the institute, this time via the alumni. This could naturally be a win-win situation for all involved. One supporter of this view, Maarten Lindeboom, states that, ‘the institute could invest in the job-placement and even post-PhD research success of its graduates, and in time the well placed alumni would widen the research network and further the international presence of the institute’.

Sinterklaas en Zwarte Piet annually visit TI.

If the ﬁne-tuning of the balance between the two diﬀerent roles of TI (as a graduate school and as an internationally well-known research institute) involves a change in the outlook of researchers, then– like all changes that entail a transformation of mindsets– it is probably only a long-term success strategy. Those eager for speedier solutions have suggested more immediate remedies, such as TI having a couple of ‘well chosen’ professors on its payroll. After all, the old Dutch proverb says: ‘Wiens brood men eet, wiens woord men spreekt’ (i.e. you speak the words of the one who pays you). Coen Teulings, for instance, suggests that ‘such a professionally sound and sociable professor would help TI to network with other international researchers by organizing international conferences and workshops at TI itself. ...These events would help shift the global discussion on certain research topics to TI,’ which would also serve to put TI on the worldwide research map. Jaap Abbring (left, DGS) and Maarten Janssen discussing TI’s future.

Our walk down the lane of TI’s history has revealed visions within the institute that diﬀer like the colours of the rainbow, but so long as TI has so many well-wishers, its future deﬁnitely seems bright!

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Letters from Alumni life after the PhD thesis defense Looking back Otto Swank*

●

Otto Swank was the

ﬁrst PhD student who graduated from Tinbergen Institute, in 1990. He is now professor of economics at the Erasmus School of Economics and research fellow of Tinbergen Institute.

On the fourth of October 1990 I received my PhD from Tinbergen Institute. During the last seventeen years, about 400 students have received a PhD from TI, and more than a hundred students are participating in its MPhil program or are writing a PhD dissertation. I doubt whether anybody could have predicted twenty years ago that TI would be so successful. Let’s go back. I started my academic career at TI in March 1987. I vividly remember my ﬁrst day. Scattered throughout three rooms at Erasmus University, a dozen students were sitting behind desks, reading, writing or gazing out the window. The atmosphere in the rooms varied widely. One room was quiet, almost dull. Another was livelier, with hot debates among students. The latter room boasted three Olivetti computers. Perhaps it is mere nostalgia, but in my memory, these Olivettis had a much more modern and luxurious design than that of the current Dell computers. In those good old days, WordStar and an early version of WordPerfect ruled the world. It’s a huge step from the TI of 1987 to the TI of 2007. Nevertheless, I think that in 1987 the foundation for the institute’s current success was laid. From the outset, Tinbergen Institute pursued a clear goal: to facilitate and encourage students to write a PhD dissertation within four years. One of the implications of this goal was that we understood perfectly what we were expected to do: research (that is, writing papers). Perhaps at the beginning the focus on doing research may have been too narrow. The initial education program was not very coherent (and this is an understatement). Highly respected scholars had been invited to give short courses. Although most of the courses were interesting, they did not constitute any sort of unity. As a result, PhD students then had a much more limited background in economics than current PhD students. In any case, TI, with its focus on research, broke with the past. Before 1987, it had been far less clear what a new, young academic was supposed to do. His tasks included teaching, assisting the professor, and perhaps working on a PhD. There was hardly any focus: the completion of a dissertation could easily take ten years. During the defense of his PhD thesis, Harry van Dalen (TI alumnus no.6) was accompanied by a mysterious female friend, introduced as Catharina du Cavalier, who was acting as his paranymph. She turned out to be Carien de Ruiter, who had translated her name in French for the occasion.

The people who felt responsible for TI were also a driving force in the initial stage. A couple of professors were determined to improve the academic climate. In their eyes, the institute should become a “centre of excellence”. I’ve never felt comfortable with this type of phrase, but I must admit that it created an environment in which ambitious young people wanted to work. Even more important was that the very same professors who wanted to change the system almost always showed up at the PhD seminars. In those days, the speaker was responsible not only for the talk, but also for the catering! The presence of these professors at seminars contributed to the students’ attitude that research, particularly research done by young people, is important. It is now twenty years later. From a small, local graduate school, Tinbergen Institute has developed into a well-known international graduate school and research institute. The people who have worked together during the last two decades to make TI what it is now have done a wonderful job.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Theses 384 MARCO JURI VAN DER LEIJ (21/12/2006), The

398 RUOGU (ROCCO) HUANG (14/03/2007), Three

economics of networks: theory and empirics.

essays on the eﬀects of banking regulations.

385 ROBBIE VAN DER NOLL (05/10/2006), Essays on

399 CARIEN (CATHARINA) VAN MOURIK

Internet and information economics.

(01/03/2007), Globalisation and the role of ﬁnancial accounting information in Japan.

386 PANCHENKO VALENTYN (11/10/2006), Nonparametric methods in economics and ﬁnance:

400 SANDRA MAXIMIANO (23/2/2007), Essays in

dependence, causality and prediction.

organizational economics.

387 CARLA (ANGÉLICA) DA SILVA PINTO DE SÁ

401 WENDY JANSSENS (23/5/2007), Social capital

(19/12/2006), Higher education choice in the

and cooperation: an impact evaluation of a

Netherlands: the economics of where to go.

women's empowerment programme in rural India.

388 JOSSE DELFGAAUW (18/01/2007), Wonderful

402 JUSTIN VAN DER SLUIS (20/4/2007), Successful

and woeful work: incentives, selection, turnover,

entrepreneurship and human capital.

and workers’ motivation. 403 SILVIA DOMINGUEZ MARTINEZ (26/4/2007), 389 GHEBREEGZIABIHER DEBREZION ANDOM

Decision making with asymmetric information.

(28/11/2006), Railway impacts on real estate prices.

404 HARI SUNARTO (14/05/2007), Understanding the role of bank relationships, relationship

390 PEPI HARDIYANTO (11/01/2007), Time series

marketing, and organizational learning in the

studies on Indonesian rupiah/usd rate 1995-2005.

performance of people’s credit bank.

391MUHAMMAD INTAN SAKTI HARIS MUNANDAR

405 MIQUEL PORTELA (10/4/2007), Four essays on

(01/12/2006), Essays on economic integration.

education, growth and labour economics.

392 KOEN GERARD BERDEN (30/11/2006), On

406 STEFANO FICCO (25/5/2007), Essays on

technology, uncertainty, and economic growth.

imperfect information-processing in economics.

393 GIJS VAN DE KUILEN (13/02/2007), The

407 PHILIPPE VERSIJP (10/5/2007), Advances in the

economic measurement of psychological risk

use of stochastic dominance in asset pricing.

attitudes. 394 ERIK MOOI (08/03/2007), Inter-organizational cooperation, conﬂict, and change. 395 ANA LLENA NOZAL (30/03/2007), On the dynamics of health, work and socioeconomic Status. 396 PIETRO DINDO (02/02/2007), Bounded rationality and heterogeneity in economic dynamic models. 397 DAVID SCHRAGER (09/02/2007), Essays on asset liability modelling.

tinbergen magazine 14, fall 2006

AA-ranked journals Visser, B., and O.H. Swank, February 2007, On

Fok, D., C. Horváth, R. Paap, and P.H. Franses,

committees of experts, Quarterly Journal of

August 2006, A Hierarchical Bayes Error Correction

Economics, 122(1), 337-372.

Model to Explain Dynamic Eﬀects of Price Changes, Journal of Marketing Research, 43(3), 443-461.

A-ranked journals Franses, P.H., and H.K. van Dijk, May 2007, Progress Abdellaoui, M., C. Barrios, and P.P. Wakker, May

and challenges in econometrics, Journal of

2007, Reconciling introspective utility with

Econometrics, 138(1), 1-2.

revealed preference: Experimental arguments based on prospect theory, Journal of Econometrics,

Gaudet, G., M. Moreaux, and C. Withagen,

138(1), 356-378.

September 2006, The Alberta dilemma: Optimal sharing of a water resource by an agricultural and

Asheim, G.B., W. Buchholz, J.M. Hartwick, T. Mitra,

an oil sector, Journal of Environmental Economics

and C. Withagen, March 2007, Constant savings

and Management, 52(2), 548-566.

rates and quasi-arithmetic population growth under exhaustible resource constraints, Journal of

Ghosh, M., S. Dutta, and S. Stremersch, November

Environmental Economics and Management, 53(2),

2006, Customizing complex products: when should

213-229.

the vendor take control?, Journal of Marketing Research, 43(4), 664-679.

Baltussen, G., T. Post, and P. van Vliet, August 2006, Violations of cumulative prospect theory in mixed

Giordani, P., R. Kohn and D. van Dijk, March 2007,

gambles with moderate probabilities, Management

A uniﬁed approach to nonlinearity, structural

Science, 52(8), 1288-1290.

change, and outliers, Journal of Econometrics, 137(1), 112-133.

Beetsma, R.M.W.J., and X. Debrun, February 2007, The new stability and growth pact: A ﬁrst

Haan, W.J. den, S.W. Sumner, and G.M. Yamashiro,

assessment, European Economic Review, 51(2),

April 2007, Bank loan portfolios and the monetary

453-477.

transmission mechanism, Journal of Monetary Economics, 54(3), 904-924.

Bleichrodt, H., J.M. Abellan-Perpiñan, J.L. PintoPrades, I. Mendez-Martinez, March 2007, Resolving

Hoogerheide, L., F. Kleibergen, and H.K. van

inconsistencies in utility measurement under

Dijk, May 2007, Natural conjugate priors for the

risk: tests of generalizations of expected utility,

instrumental variables regression model applied to

Management Science, 53(3), 469-482.

the Angrist-Krueger data, Journal of Econometrics, 138(1), 63-103.

Bleichrodt, H., and E. van Doorslaer, September 2006, A welfare economics foundation for health

Janssen, M.C.W., and V.A. Karamychev, May 2007,

inequality measurement, Journal of Health

Selection eﬀects in auctions for monopoly rights,

Economics, 25(5), 945-957.

Journal of Economic Theory, 134(1), 576-582.

Donnell, O.O.E. van Doorslaer, R.P. Rannan-Eliya,

Kuosmanen, T., T. Post, and S. Scholtes, Jan 2007,

A. Somanathan, S.R. Adhikari, D. Harbianto, C.C.

Non-parametric tests of productive eﬃciency with

Garg, P. Hanvoravongchai, M.N. Huq, A. Karan,

errors-in-variables, Journal of Econometrics, 136(1),

G.M. Leung, C.Wan Ng, B. Raj Pande, K. Tin, K.

131-162.

Tisayaticom, L. Trisnantoro, Y. Zhang, and Y. Zhao, January 2007, The incidence of public spending on

Sloot, L.M., D. Fok, and P.C. Verhoef, November

healthcare: comparative evidence from Asia, World

2006, The short- and long-term impact of an

Bank Economic Review, (21) 93-123.

assortment reduction on category sales, Journal of Marketing Research, 43(4), 536-548.

Eckstein, Z., and G.J. van den Berg, February 2007, Empirical labor search: A survey, Journal of

Sonnemans, J.H., November 2006, Price clustering

Econometrics, 136(2), 531-564.

and natural resistance points in the Dutch stock market: A natural experiment, European Economic

Elbers, C., J.W. Gunning, and B. Kinsey, January

Review, 50(8), 1937-1950.

2007, Growth and risk: methodology and micro evidence, World Bank Economic Review, (21), 1-20.

B-ranked journals

Fok, D., P.H. Franses, and R. Paap, May 2007,

Abbink, K., B. Irlenbusch, and E. Renner, October

Seasonality and non-linear price eﬀects in scanner-

2006, Group size and social ties in microﬁnance

data-based market-response models, Journal of

institutions, Economic Inquiry, 44(4), 614-628.

Econometrics, 148(1), 231-251.

tinbergen magazine 14, fall 2006

Alessie, R., S. Hochguertel, and A. van Soest,

Ellman, M., September 2006, Churchill on Stalin: A

August 2006, Non-take-up of tax-favored savings

note, Europe-Asia Studies, 58(6), 965 - 971.

plans: Evidence from Dutch employees, Journal of Economic Psychology, 27(4), 483-501.

Eppink, F.V., and J.C.J.M. van den Bergh, March 2007, Ecological theories and indicators in

Batabyal, A.A., and P. Nijkamp, April 2007, The

economic models of biodiversity loss and

stochastic arrival of alien species and the number

conservation: A critical review, Ecological

of and the damage from biological invasions,

Economics, 61(2-3), 284-293.

Ecological Economics, 62(2), 277-280. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, A., and J.M. Gowdy, January Batabyal, A.A., and P. Nijkamp, November 2006,

2007, Environmental degradation and happiness,

Some probabilistic attributes of inspection policies

Ecological Economics, 60(3), 509-516.

in alien species management, Ecological Economics, 60(1), 5-8.

Ferrer-i-Carbonell, A., and J.C.J.M. van den Bergh, April 2007, Economics and happiness: Framing the

Bayındır, Z.P., S.I. Birbil and J.B.G. Frenk, November s

analysis, Ecological Economics, 62(1), 196-198.

2006, The joint replenishment problem with variable production costs, European Journal of

Franses, P.H., and R. van Oest, May 2007, On

Operational Research, 175(1), 622-640.

the econometrics of the geometric lag model, Economics Letters, 95(2), 291-296.

Beetsma R., M. Giuliodori, and F. Klaassen, October 2006, Trade spill-overs of ﬁscal policy in the

Frenk, J.B.G., January 2007, A note on the paper

European Union: a panel analysis, Economic Policy,

“Fractional programming with convex quadratic

21(48), 639-687.

forms and functions” by H.P. Benson, European Journal of Operational Research, 176(1), 641-642.

Beniers, K., and R. Dur, February 2007, Politicians’ motivation, political culture, and electoral

Freytag, A., and R. Thurik, April 2007,

competition, International Tax and Public Finance,

Entrepreneurship and its determinants in a cross-

14(1), 29-54.

country setting, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 17(2), 117-131.

Bortolotti, B., F. de Jong, G. Nicodano, and I. Schindele, February 2007, Privatization and stock

Gaujal, B., A. Hordijk, and D. van der Laan,

market liquidity, Journal of Banking and Finance,

February 2007, On the optimal open-loop control

31(2), 297-316.

policy for deterministic and exponential polling systems, Probability in the Engineering and

Bun, M.J.G., and M.A. Carree, August 2006, Bias-

Computational Sciences, 21(2), 157-187.

corrected estimation in dynamic panel data models with heteroscedasticity, Economics Letters, 92(2),

Gooijer, J.G. de, and R.J. Hyndman, issue on the

220-227.

occasion of the 25 years celebration 2006, 25 years of time series forecasting, International Journal of

Daníelsson, J., B.N. Jorgensen, M. Sarma, and C.G.

Forecasting, 22(3), 443-473.

de Vries, August 2006, Comparing downside risk measures for heavy tailed distributions, Economics

Groenewegen, J., September 2006, Leviathans:

Letters, 92(2), 202-208.

multinational corporations and the new global history, Journal of Economic Issues, 40(3), 853-855.

Donkers, B., R. Paap, J.-J. Jonker, P.H. Franses, July/ August 2006, Deriving target selection rules from

Herings, P.J.-J., G. van der Laan, and D. Talman,

endogenously selected samples, Journal of Applied

February 2007, Socially structured games, Theory

Econometrics, 21(5), 549-562

and Decision, 62(1), 1-29.

Doorslaer E, van, O. O’Donnell, R.P. Rannan-

Herpen, M. van, K. Cools, and M. van Praag, August

Eliya, A. Somanathan, S.R. Adhikari, C.C. Garg, D.

2006, Wage structure and the incentive eﬀects of

Harbianto, A.N. Herrin, M.N. Huq, S. Ibragimova,

promotions, Kyklos, 59 (3), 441-459.

A. Karan, T.J. Lee, G.M. Leung, J.F. Lu, C.W. Ng, B.R. Pande, R. Racelis, S. Tao, K. Tin, K. Tisayaticom, L.

Hinloopen, J., November 2006, Internal cartel

Trisnantoro, C. Vasavid, Y. Zhao, February 2007,

stability with time-dependent detection

Catastrophic payments for health care in Asia,

probabilities, International Journal of Industrial

Health Economics.

Organization, 24(6), 1213-1229.

Elbers, C., T. Fujii, P. Lanjouw, B. Özler, and W. Yin,

Hinloopen J., and S. Martin, November 2006, The

Poverty alleviation through geographic targeting:

economics of cartels, cartel policy, and collusion,

How much does disaggregation help?, Journal of

International Journal of Industrial Organization,

Development Economics, 38(1), 198-213.

24(6), 1079-1082.

tinbergen magazine 14, fall 2006

Hoekstra, R. and J.C.J.M. van den Bergh, September

Sleuwaegen, L., and E. Pennings, September 2006,

2006, Constructing physical input-output tables

international relocation of production: where do

for environmental modeling and accounting:

ﬁrms go?, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 53

Framework and illustrations, Ecological Economics,

(4), 430-446.

59(3), 375-393. Schinkel, M.P., and J. Tuinstra, November 2006, The Hoekstra, R., and J.C.J.M. van den Bergh, November

economics of cartels, cartel policy, and collusion,

2006, The impact of structural change on physical

International Journal of Industrial Organization

ﬂows in the economy: Forecasting and backcasting

24(6), 1267-1297.

using structural decomposition analysis, Land Economics, 82(4), 582-601.

Sloof, R., H. Oosterbeek, A. Riedl, and J. Sonnemans, September 2006, Breach remedies,

Janssen, M.C.W., October 2006, On the strategic use

reliance and renegotiation, International Review of

of focal points in bargaining situations, Journal of

Law and Economics, 26(3), 263-296.

Economic Psychology, 27(5), 622-634. Sloof, R., H. Oosterbeek, and J. Sonnemans, Keyzer, M., and L. van Wesenbeeck, September

March 2007, On the importance of default breach

2006, The millennium development goals, How

remedies, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical

realistic are they?, De Economist, 154(3), 443-466.

Economics, 163(1), 5-22.

Kuilen, G. van de, and P.P. Wakker, December 2006,

Soetevent, A.R., and P. Kooreman, April/May 2007,

Learning in the Allais paradox, Journal of Risk and

A discrete-choice model with social interactions:

Uncertainty 33(3), 155-164.

with an application to high school teen behavior, Journal of Applied Econometrics, 22(3), 599-624.

Martens, M., and D.J. van Dijk, May 2007, Measuring volatility with the realized range,

Stel, A. van, D.J. Storey, and A.R. Thurik, March

Journal of Econometrics, 138(1), 181-207.

2007, The eﬀect of business regulations on nascent and young business entrepreneurship, Small

Mulder, P., and H.L.F. de Groot, January 2007, Sectoral

Business Economics, 28(2-3), 171-186.

energy- and labour-productivity convergence, Environmental and Resource Economics 36(1), 85-112.

Swank, O.H., and B. Visser, December 2006, Do elections lead to informed public decisions?, Public

Noailly, J., C.A. Withagen, and J.C.J.M. van den Bergh,

Choice, 129 (3-4), 435-460.

January 2007, Spatial evolution of social norms in a common-pool resource game, Environmental &

Swank, O.H., and B. Visser, September 2006,

Resource Economics, 36(1), 113-141.

Motivating through delegating tasks or giving attention, Journal of Law, Economics and

Ommeren, J. van, and P. Rietveld, Spring 2007,

Organization.

commuting and reimbursement of residential relocation costs, Journal of Transport Economics

Tuinstra, J., and F.O.O. Wagener, March 2007, On

and Policy, 41(1), 51-73.

learning equilibria, Economic Theory, 30(3), 493513.

Oosterbeek, H., R. Sloof, and J. Sonnemans, May 2007, promotion rules and skill acquisition: An

Tijms, H. , and K. Staats, Jan 2007, Negative

experimental study, Economica, 74(294), 259-297.

probabilities at work in the M/D/1 queue, Probability in the Engineering and Informational

Oosterbeek, H., R. Sloof, and J. Sonnemans, April

Sciences, 21(01), 67-76.

2007, Who should invest in speciﬁc training?, Journal of Population Economics, 20(2), 329-357.

Tijms, H., and J. van der Wal, Oct 2006, A realworld stochastic two-person game, Probability in

Paap, R., P.H. Franses, B. Donkers, and J.-J. Jonker,

the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 20(04),

December 2006, Deriving target selection rules

599-608.

from endogenously selected samples, Journal of Applied Econometrics 21(5), 549-562.

Uhlaner, L., and R. Thurik, April 2007, Postmaterialism inﬂuencing total entrepreneurial

Pauwels, K., S. Srinivasan, and P.H. Franses, January-

activity across nations, Journal of Evolutionary

February 2007, When do price thresholds matter in

Economics, 17(2), 161-185.

retail categories?, Marketing Science, 26, 83-100. Wennekers, S., R. Thurik, A. van Stel, and N. Sadiraj, V., J. Tuinstra, and F. van Winden, October

Noorderhaven, April 2007, Uncertainty avoidance

2006, A computational electoral competition model

and the rate of business ownership across 21 OECD

with social clustering and endogenous interest

countries, 1976-2004, Journal of Evolutionary

groups as information brokers, Public Choice, 129

Economics, 17(2), 133-160.

(1-2), 169-187.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

TI-ranked (chapter(s) in) Books

Walhout, International Institute for Social History, Diﬀusion of a Social Norm: Tracing the Emergence

Bergh, J.C.J.M. van den, 2006, Bioeconomic

of the Housewife in the Netherlands, 1812-1922

Modelling and Valuation of Exploited Marine Ecosystems, Springer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands.

06-111/1 Robert Dur, EUR, Hein Roelfsema, Utrecht

Heidergott, B., 2006, Max-Plus Linear Stochastic

University, Social Exchange and Common Agency in

Systems and Perturbation Analysis (The

Organizations

International Series on Discrete Event Dynamic Systems), Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

06-114/1 René van den Brink, Gerard van der Laan, VU,

Heidergott, B., G.J. Olsder, and J.W. v.d. Woude,

Valeri Vasil’ev, Sobolev Institute of Mathematics,

2006, Max Plus at Work: Modeling and Analysis

Novosibirsk, Distributing Dividends in Games with

of Synchronized Systems: A Course on Max-Plus

Ordered Players

Algebra and its Applications. Princeton Series in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University Press,

06-115/1

Princeton.

Matthijs van Veelen, UvA, Evolution of Strategies in Repeated Games with Discounting

Nijkamp, P., R.L. Moomaw, and I. Traistaru, 2006, Entrepreneurship, Investment and Spatial Dynamics:

07-001/1

Lessons and Implications for an Enlarged EU, Edward

Maarten C.W. Janssen, Vladimir A. Karamychev,

Elgar Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA.

EUR, Do Auctions select Eﬃcient Firms? 07-003/1

Discussion Papers

Floris Heukelom, ASE, UvA, Kahneman and Tversky and the Origin of Behavioral Economics

Institutions and decision processes

07-005/1 Floris Heukelom, UvA, What Simon Says

06-092/1 Otto H. Swank, EUR, The Self-Perception Theory vs.

07-010/1

a Dynamic Learning Model

Josse Delfgaauw, EUR, Dedicated Doctors: Public and Private Provision of Health Care with Altruistic

06-095/1

Physicians

Harold Houba, VU, Computing Alternating Oﬀers and Water Prices in Bilateral River Basin

07-015/1

Management

Martin G. Kocher, UvA, Matthias Sutter, Florian Wakolbinger, University of Innsbruck, The Impact of

06-098/1

Naïve Advice and Observational Learning in Beauty-

Dennis Dittrich, University of Erfurt, Martin G.

contest Games

Kocher, UvA, Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision

07-017/1 Peter Rodenburg, UvA, Derived Measurement in Macroeconomics: Two Approaches for Measuring the

06-099/1

NAIRU Considered

Wolfgang J. Luhan, University of Innsbruck, Martin G. Kocher, UvA, Matthias Sutter, University of

07-020/1

Cologne, Group Polarization in the Team Dictator

Floris Heukelom, UvA, Who are the Behavioral

Game reconsidered

Economists and what do they say?

06-100/1

07-38/1

Jeroen Hinloopen, UvA, Charles van Marrewijk,

René van den Brink, VU, Frank Steﬀen, Management

EUR, Comparative Advantage, the Rank-size Rule,

School (ULMS), University of Liverpool, Positional

and Zipf’s Law

Power in Hierarchies

06-104/1 Martin G. Kocher, UvA, Peter Martinsson, Martine

Financial and International Markets

Visser, Göteborg University, Sweden, Does Stake Size Matter for Cooperation and Punishment?

06-085/2 Thomas Mikosch, University of Copenhagen,

06-107/1

Casper G. de Vries, EUR, Tail Probabilities for

Frans W.A. van Poppel, Netherlands

Regression Estimators

Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), Hendrik P. van Dalen, EUR, ECRI, and NIDI, Evelien

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

06-086/2

06-096/3

Phornchanok Cumperayot, Chulalongkorn

Maria Francesca Cracolici, University of Palermo,

University, Casper G. de Vries, EUR, Large Swings in

Italy, Peter Nijkamp, VU, Eﬃciency and Productivity

Currencies driven by Fundamentals

of Italian Tourist Destinations: A Quantitative Estimation based on Data Envelopment Analysis and

06-093/2

the Malmquist Method

Ana Babus, EUR,The Formation of Financial Networks

06-097/3 Francesca Cracolici, University of Palermo, Italy,

06-094/2

Piet Rietveld, Peter Nijkamp, VU, Assessment of

Konrad Banachewicz, Aad van der Vaart, André

Tourist Competitiveness by Analysing Destination

Lucas, VU, Modeling Portfolio Defaults using Hidden

Eﬃciency

Markov Models with Covariates 06-102/3 06-112/2

Siv Gustafsson, Seble Y. Worku, UvA, Marriage

Franc Klaassen, Henk Jager, UvA, Model-free

Markets and Single Motherhood in South Africa

Measurement of Exchange Market Pressure 06-103/3 07-004/2

Peter van der Zwan, CASBEC, Erasmus School of

Enrico Perotti, Armin Schwienbacher, UvA, The

Economics, EUR, and EIM Zoetermeer, Roy Thurik,

Political Origins of Pension Funding

CASBEC, EUR, EIM Zoetermeer, Max Planck Institute of Economics, and VU, Isabel Grilo, DG Enterprise,

07-006/2

European Commission, GREMARS, Université de

Enrico Perotti, UvA, Paolo Volpin, London Business

Lille 3, and CORE, Université Cath. de Louvain, The

School, Investor Protection and Entry

Entrepreneurial Ladder and its Determinants

07-011/2

06-106/3

Chris Elbers, Jan Willem Gunning, Lei Pan, VU,

Martijn Brons, Peter Nijkamp, Eric Pels, Piet

Insurance and Rural Welfare: What can Panel Data

Rietveld, VU, A Meta-analysis of the Price Elasticity

Tell Us?

of Gasoline Demand. A System of Equations Approach

07-014/2 Lei Pan, VU, Risk Pooling through Transfers in Rural

06-108/3

Ethiopia

Tom Van Ourti, Eddy Van Doorslaer, Xander Koolman, EUR, The Eﬀect of Growth and Inequality

07-023/2

in Incomes on Health Inequality: Theory and

J.L. Geluk, The Petroleum Institute, L. de Haan,

Empirical Evidence from the European Panel

Casper G. de Vries, EUR, Weak & Strong Financial Fragility

06-109/3 Maarten Lindeboom, Ana Llena Nozal, Bas van der

07-026/2

Klaauw, VU, Parental Education and Child Health:

Ward A. van den Berg, Han T.J. Smit, EUR,

Evidence from a Schooling Reform

Consolidation Waves 06-110/3 07-033/2

Jaap H. Abbring, VU, Jeﬀrey R. Campbell, Federal

Kerstin Bernoth, De Nederlandsche Bank and ZEI-

Reserve Bank of Chicago, and NBER, Last-In First-

University of Bonn, Jürgen von Hagen, University

Out Oligopoly Dynamics

of Bonn, Indiana University and CEPR, Casper G. de Vries, EUR, The Forward Premium Puzzle Only

06-113/3

Emerges Gradually

Moshe Givoni, Piet Rietveld, VU, Choice of Aircraft Size - Explanations and Implications

07-034/2 Mariëlle C. Non, Philip Hans Franses, EUR,

07-002/3

Interlocking Boards and Firm Performance: Evidence

Hans G. Bloemen, VU, The Impact of Wealth on Job

from a New Panel Database

Exit Rates of Elderly Workers

Labour, Region and Environment

07-007/3 Piet Rietveld, Stefan van Woudenberg, VU, Second

06-089/3

Best Decision Making of Railway Operators: How to

Simon C. Parker, Durham University, Mirjam C.

ﬁx Fares, Frequency and Vehicle Size

van Praag, UvA, The Entrepreneur’s Mode of Entry: Business Takeover or New Venture start?

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

07-008/3

07-030/3

Owen O’Donnell, University of Macedonia, Greece,

Ruud A. de Mooij, CPB, EUR, Netspar, and CESifo,

Ángel López Nicolás, Universidad Politecnica de

Gaëtan Nicodème, European Commission, and

Cartagena, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain, Eddy

Solvay Business School (ULB), Corporate Tax Policy,

van Doorslaer, EUR, Growing Richer and Taller:

Entrepreneurship and Incorporation in the EU

Explaining Change in the Distribution of Child Nutritional Status during Vietnam’s Economic Boom

07-031/3 K. Bolin, B. Lindgren, Lund University Centre for

07-009/3

Health Economics, Lund, Sweden, P. Lundborg,

Gerard J. van den Berg, Maarten Lindeboom, France

Lund University Centre for Health Economics,

Portrait, VU, Conjugal Bereavement Eﬀects on

Lund, Sweden, VU, and NETSPAR, Informal and

Health and Mortality at Advanced Ages

Formal Care among Single-living Elderly in Europe

07-012/3

07-032/3

Ghebreegziabiher Debrezion, Eric Pels, Piet

K. Bolin, and B. Lindgren, Lund University Centre

Rietveld, VU, Modelling the Joint Access Mode and

for Health Economics, Lund, Sweden, P. Lundborg,

Railway Station Choice

Lund University Centre for Health Economics, VU, and NETSPAR, Your Next of Kin or your Own Career?

07-013/3

Caring and Working among the 50+ of Europe

Pieter A. Gautier, Arjen Siegmann, Aico van Vuuren, VU, The Eﬀect of the Theo van Gogh Murder on

07-035/3

House Prices in Amsterdam

Ellen van de Poel, EUR, Owen O’Donnell, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, Eddy van

07-016/3

Doorslaer, EUR, Are Urban Children really

Hans G. Bloemen, VU, Elena Stancanelli, CNRS,

Healthier?

GREDEG, Nice, and OFCE, Sciences-Po, Paris, A Model with Endogenous Programme Participation:

07-037/3

Evaluating the Tax Credit in France

Jaap H. Abbring, VU, Jeﬀrey R. Campbell, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and NBER, Duopoly

07-018/3

Dynamics with a Barrier to Entry

Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, VU, Evolutionary Thinking in Environmental Economics

07-039/3 Sandra Phlippen, EUR; Massimo Riccaboni,

07-019/3

University of Florida, Radical Innovation and

Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, VU, Abolishing GDP

Network Evolution

07-021/3

Econometrics

Pieter A. Gautier, VU, Michael Svarer, Aarhus University, Coen N. Teulings, CPB and UvA, Sin

06-079/4

City?

H. Peter Boswijk, UvA, Roy van der Weide, World Bank, Wake Me up before You GO-GARCH

07-022/3 Martin Carree, University of Maastricht, André van

06-101/4

Stel, EIM, Zoetermeer, Cranﬁeld University School

Siem Jan Koopman, Marius Ooms, Irma

of Management, and EUR, Roy Thurik, Erasmus

Hindrayanto, VU, Periodic Unobserved Cycles in

School of Economics, EUR, EIM, Zoetermeer,

Seasonal Time Series with an Application to US

Cranﬁeld University, School of Management, and

Unemployment

Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany, Sander Wennekers, EIM, and EUR, The Relation

06-105/4

between Economic Development and Business

Siem Jan Koopman, Soon Yip Wong, VU, Extracting

Ownership Revisited

Business Cycles using Semi-parametric Time-varying Spectra with Applications to US Macroeconomic Time

07-024/3

Series

Siv Gustafsson, Seble Worku, UvA, Teenage Motherhood and Long-run Outcomes in South Africa

07-025/4 Charles S. Bos, Phillip Gould, VU, Dynamic

07-029/3 Bas Jacobs, UvA, Tilburg University, CentER, Netspar, and CESifo, Ruud A. de Mooij, CPB, EUR, Netspar, and CESifo, Kees Folmer, CPB, Analyzing a Flat Income Tax in the Netherlands

Correlations and Optimal Hedge Ratios

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

07-026/4 Siem Jan Koopman, AndrĂŠ Lucas, Marius Ooms, Kees van Montfort, VU, Victor van der Geest, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NCSR), Leiden, Estimating Systematic Continuous-time Trends in Recidivism using a Non-Gaussian Panel Data Model 07-028/4 Michiel D. de Pooter, Francesco Ravazzolo, and Dick van Dijk, EUR, Predicting the Term Structure of Interest Rates: Incorporating Parameter Uncertainty, Model Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Information 07-036/4 Christian Huurman, Financial Engineering Associates, Francesco Ravazzolo, and Chen Zhou, EUR, The Power of Weather: Some Empirical Evidence on Predicting Day-ahead Power Prices through Dayahead Weather Forecasts

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

More “unusual” productivity measures

TI children Witold, born April 19, 2004

Tinbergen Institute oﬀers a fruitful and productive environment to researchers and students: grades and diplomas, theses and publications are just some of the fruit TI bears. Another measure of productivity: TI couples and TI children. Below we mention all couples and children that we know of (with year of graduation or position at TI between parentheses). In all cases, TI played an important role in bringing or keeping the couples together.

Parents: Ewa Mendys-Kamphorst (2003) and Jurjen Kamphorst (2005) Sasha, born July 2, 2002 Zoey, born September 15, 2005 Parents: Silva Dezelan (2001) and Egbert Jongen (forthcoming) Daniel, born April 21, 2006 Parents: Klarita Gërxhani (2002) and Arthur Schram (research fellow) Ardit, born June 26, 2001 Parents: Klarita Sadiraj (1999) and Govert Bijwaard (2005) Vlieger, born April 3, 2002 Maas, born May 26, 2003 Parents: Jos Kok (TI secretary) and Mathijs Bouman (1998) Tessa, born August 15, 1996 Joris, born March 18, 2001 Parents: Jeannette Capel (1993) and Marcel Canoy (1993) Bernhard, born April 9, 2000 Hannelore, born February 24, 2002 Parents: Lidewij van der Sluis (2000) and Pieter Jelle van der Sluis (1999) Erik, born April 24, 2004 Noémi, born November 21, 2006 Parents: Emöke Basza (2002) and Bart Oldenkamp (1999)

TI couples

Gaia, born October 28, 2002 Django, born April 1, 2005

Louise Grogan (2000) and Luc Moers (2002)

Parents: Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2003) and Jeroen van den Bergh (1991)

Jeab Cumperayot (2002) and Roy Kouwenberg (2000)

Nina, born March 13, 2007 Parents: Stefka Petrova (MPhil 2005) and Vitaly

Elﬁe Bonke (secretary TI Amsterdam) and Jeroen Roodhart (system administrator TI Amsterdam) Marta Lopez Yurda (PhD student) and Charles Bos (2001) Lei Pan (PhD student) and Michel van der Wel (PhD student) Yin-Yen Tseng (PhD student) and Jian Huang (PhD student) Carla Sá (2006) and Miguel Portela (2007) Ana Babus (PhD student) and Ernesto Reuben (2006) Irma Hindrayanto (PhD student) and Kai Ming Lee (PhD student)

Pruzhansky (2002)

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007

Colophon

Tinbergen Research Institute

Tinbergen Magazine is published by the Tinbergen Institute, an economic research institute operated jointly by the Economics and Econometrics faculties of three Dutch universities: Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Universiteit van Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Tinbergen Magazine highlights on-going research at the Tinbergen Institute and is published twice a year.

Four themes distinguish Tinbergen Institute’s research programme: I. Institutions and Decision Analysis II. Financial and International Markets III. Labour, Region and the Environment IV. Econometrics and Operations Research Each theme covers the whole spectrum of economic analysis, from theoretical to empirical research. Stimulating discussions on theories, methodologies and empirical results arise from the interaction of the Institute’s faculty - comprised of approximately 130 research fellows. These fellows are faculty members with excellent track records in economic research, active in organising research activities, teaching graduate courses and supervising PhD students.

Discussion Papers Research is pre-published in the institute’s own Discussion Paper Series. Download discussion papers at http://www.tinbergen.nl (section ‘Publications’). E-mail address for correspondence: tinbergen-magazine@tinbergen.nl

Photographs Henk Thomas, Amsterdam Levien Willemse, Rotterdam

Editorial services Tinbergen Graduate School

Etc. Editorial, Breda

Design Crasborn Graﬁsch Ontwerpers bno, Valkenburg a.d. Geul

Printing Drukkerij Tonnaer, Kelpen ISSN 1566-3213

The Tinbergen Institute offers a five-year graduate programme, consisting of two years of intensive graduate coursework in its Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Economics programme and three years of PhD thesis research. The MPhil programme is a twoyear research master in economics, econometrics, and finance that leads to an MPhil degree in economics. Due to the demanding nature of the programme, the MPhil is open only to a rigorously selected group of students. An excellent preparation for PhD thesis research, the MPhil programme is connected to three-year PhD positions in the economics departments of the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Addresses Tinbergen Institute Amsterdam Roetersstraat 31 1018 WB Amsterdam The Netherlands Telephone: +31 (0)20 551 3500 Fax: +31 (0)20 551 3555 Tinbergen Institute Rotterdam Burg. Oudlaan 50 3062 PA Rotterdam The Netherlands Telephone: +31 (0)10 408 8900 Fax: +31 (0)10 408 9031 e-mail: tinbergen@tinbergen.nl www.tinbergen.nl

The MPhil in Economics has been accredited by the Dutch and Flemish Accreditation Organization for higher education (NVAO), and eligible students can claim two years of ﬁnancial aid (“studieﬁnanciering”). In addition, the Tinbergen Institute allocates a limited number of scholarships each year based on academic merit.

Detailed information on the institute’s graduate programme and the application procedure can be found in the Graduate School section of www. tinbergen.nl. Please send any questions to applications@tinbergen.nl.

Board J.J.M. Kremers (Chair), J. Frijns, J.-W. Gunning, H. Oosterbeek, C.G. de Vries.

General Director M.C.W. Janssen

Director of Graduate Studies J.H. Abbring

Research Programme Co-ordinators Institutions and Decision Analysis: J.H. Sonnemans, O.H. Swank. Financial Economics and International Markets: A. Lucas, J.-M. Viaene. Labour, Region and the Environment: J.C.J.M. van den Bergh, E. Plug. Econometrics: R. Dekker, S.J. Koopman.

Editorial Board Tinbergen Magazine C. Cakmali, T.R. Daniëls, S. Gupta, D. Hollanders, M.C.W. Janssen, F. Ravazzolo, R. Wolthoﬀ.

We thank the following persons for their contributions: Jaap Abbring, Elﬁe Bonke, Charles Bos, Frank den Butter, Herman van Dijk, Jan Willem Gunning, Arianne de Jong, Maarten Lindeboom, Tse-Chun Lin, Bernard van Praag, Jan van Ours, Richard Paap, Rick van der Ploeg, Hettie Pott-Buter, Miguel Portela, Annemarie Rima, Carien de Ruiter, Otto Swank, Coen Teulings, Marcel Vorage, Frans van Winden, Nan Yang.

How to subscribe? Address for correspondence/ subscriptions: Tinbergen Institute Rotterdam Burg. Oudlaan 50 3062 PA Rotterdam The Netherlands. E-mail: tinbergen-magazine@tinbergen.nl Address changes may be sent to the above e-mail address.

tinbergen magazine 15, spring 2007