Jan C. van Ours (born in Stellendam in 1954) [1] is a Dutch economist and currently Professor of Applied Economics at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). [2] He belongs to the most highly cited economists in the Netherlands [3] and is the 1996 winner of the Hicks-Tinbergen Award (together with Geert Ridder). [4]
A native of Stellendam, Jan van Ours earned a Master's degree in mining engineering from the Delft University of Technology in 1977, but subsequently changed his studies to economics, wherein he earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. from Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) in 1982 and 1986. Already in 1977, van Ours became member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy (1978–83), followed by an appointment to the Organisation for Labour Market Research (1983–88). In 1988, van Ours became an associate professor in economics at the Free University of Amsterdam (1988–94) before returning to Rotterdam as full professor in 1994. During his first tenure at EUR (1994–97), he also served as director of the Tinbergen Institute. In 1998, van Ours became Professor of Labor Economics at Tilburg University (1998-2016), where he also intermittently led the Department of Economics (1999-2000) and directed the Centre for Economic Research (CentER) (2001). Finally, in 2016, Jan van Ours returned to EUR, where he was appointed as Professor of Applied Economics. [5]
Van Ours maintains professional affiliations with the Tinbergen Institute, CESifo, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Centre for Research and Economic Analysis on Migration, and the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. [6] Moreover, he is a fellow of the European Association of Labour Economists, whose president he was from 2011 to 2014, and presided also over the European Society for Population Economics (2009). He also has been a member of the Central Planning Bureau of the Netherlands since 2014. Finally, Jan van Ours performs editorial duties at the academic reviews De Economist , Labour Economics and Journal of the Economics of Aging and has done so in the past for IZA World of Labor , Economic Policy , Journal of the European Economic Association , and the European Economic Review . [7]
Jan van Ours' research focuses on labour economics and other applied economic topics. In particular, he has conducted substantial research on how labour market institutions affect employers and workers if labour markets aren't perfectly competitive (with Tito Boeri). [8] According to IDEAS/RePEc, he belongs to the top 1% of economists in terms of research output. [9]
In the 1990s, Jan van Ours has conducted extensive research on the topics of job search and job matching. Together with Geert Ridder, he finds that most vacancies are filled from a pool of job searchers shortly after the vacancy's posting, implying that vacancy durations reflect the duration of employers' selection process rather than applicants' search periods. [10] Importantly, this pool not only includes unemployed but also employed job searchers, [11] though less educated and higher educated job searchers don't tend to compete for the same jobs. [12] Moreover, with Martin Lindeboom and Gusta Renes, van Ours finds important differences between the effectiveness of search channels: whereas employment offices are effective in matching unemployed workers, advertisements are effective for employed workers, and informal search channels are effective in both cases. [13] Finally, comparing labour and job turnover, van Ours, Daniel Hamermesh and Wolter Hassink find that most mobility is not to new nor from destroyed jobs but rather into and out of existing jobs, firms with declining employment hire a lot and firms with expanding employment fire a lot, worker turnover is much larger than job turnover, and simultaneous hiring and firing exists. [14]
Another area of van Ours' research are the economics of unemployment insurance, benefits and active labour market policies. In the Netherlands, van Ours, Gerard van den Berg and Jaap Abbring find that reductions of unemployed persons' benefits for failing to meet search requirements are effective in raising individual re-employment rates. [15] [16] This finding is also substantiated by van Ours' research with Rafael Lalive and Josef Zweimüller on Switzerland, wherein warnings and enforcement are found to increase unemployment outflows both towards employment and out-of-the labour force and actual benefit reductions lower the quality of post-unemployment jobs in terms of duration and earnings. Moreover, stricter monitoring of eligibility requirements reduces the unemployment durations of the non-sanctioned as well as their earnings. [17] [18] Further research by van Ours with Lalive and Zweimüller on Austria has highlighted the role of behavioural responses by the unemployed to changes in their financial incentives, e.g. increases in unemployment durations in response to higher benefit replacement rates. [19] [20] Additionally, research with Milan Vodopivec on Slovenia also finds that reducing the potential duration of unemployment benefits increases unemployment outflows but doesn't affect the quality of job matches in terms of wages, contract type or match duration. [21] [22]
Analysing the impact of ALMPs in Switzerland, van Ours, Lalive and Zweimüller find some evidence that temporary subsidised job may reduce unemployment duration, whereas training and employment programmes don't. [23] By contrast, van Ours and Graversen find mandatory activation programmes in Denmark to be very effective with regard to reducing unemployment duration, possibly because more intensive contacts between the unemployed and public placement services. [24] Finally, van Ours and Jan Boone find evidence suggesting that labour market training is effective in reducing unemployment, whereas public employment services and job subsidization aren't. [25] [26]
Other research on labour economics by van Ours has dealt with topics such as the relationship between unemployment, [27] [28] part-time work, education, age, employment protection. Analysing the relationship between unemployment, labour market institutions and labour market reforms with Michèle Belot, van Ours show that particular combinations of labour market institutions are effective in terms of lowering unemployment rates. [29] [30] Investigating the effects of working hours on satisfaction with Alison Booth, van Ours finds that neither men's nor women's life satisfaction is affected by their hours of work, though men's hours-of-work satisfaction is highest for full-time jobs and that of women is highest for part-time jobs of any size, in line with theories linking family happiness with work patterns conforming to traditional gender identities. [31] [32] In research with Lenny Stoeldraijer, van Ours finds no evidence of an age related pay-productivity gap in Dutch manufacturing. [33] Studying the educational attainment of second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands together with Justus Veenman, they conclude that differences in the level of education of their parents are driving the differences in educational attainment between second-generation immigrants and native Dutch people. [34] Finally, another important research finding of van Ours' work with Belot and Boone is that employment protection may be welfare-improving, though the optimal level of employment protection is mediated by labour market features such as workers' relative bargaining power and wage rigidities (e.g. minimum wages). [35]
Labour economics, or labor economics, seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour. Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers, usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding firms. Because these labourers exist as parts of a social, institutional, or political system, labour economics must also account for social, cultural and political variables.
Unemployment, according to the OECD, is people above a specified age not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
Employment protection legislation (EPL) includes all types of employment protection measures, whether grounded primarily in legislation, court rulings, collectively bargained conditions of employment, or customary practice. The term is common among circles of economists. Employment protection refers both to regulations concerning hiring and firing.
In economics, a monopsony is a market structure in which a single buyer substantially controls the market as the major purchaser of goods and services offered by many would-be sellers. The microeconomic theory of monopsony assumes a single entity to have market power over all sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service. This is a similar power to that of a monopolist, which can influence the price for its buyers in a monopoly, where multiple buyers have only one seller of a good or service available to purchase from.
Dennis J. Snower is an American-German economist, specialising in macroeconomic theory and policy, labor economics, digital governance, social economics, and the psychology of economic decisions in "caring economics".
Alan Manning is a British economist and professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
Alison L. Booth is an Australian labour economist and novelist who is professor of economics at the Australian National University. She is the author of six novels. These are Stillwater Creek (2010), The Indigo Sky (2011), A Distant Land (2012), A Perfect Marriage (2018), The Philosopher's Daughters (2020) and The Painting (2021).
Stephen Jonathan Machin is a British economist and professor of economics at the London School of Economics (LSE). Moreover, he is currently director of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) and is a fellow of the British Academy, the Society of Labor Economists and the European Economic Association. His current research interests include labour market inequality, the economics of education, and the economics of crime.
Christian Dustmann, FBA, is a German economist who currently serves as Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics of University College London. There, he also works as Director of the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), which he helped found. Dustmann belongs to the world's foremost labour economists and migration scholars.
Yann Algan is a French economist, Associate Dean of Pre-experience Programs and Professor of Economics at HEC Paris. He was previously and until 2021 a Professor of Economics of Sciences Po, where he was dean of the School of Public Affairs. His research interests include the digital economy, social capital and well-being. In 2009, Yann Algan was awarded the Prize of the Best Young Economist of France for his contributions to economics in France.
Pierre Cahuc is a French economist who currently works as Professor of Economics at Sciences Po. He is Program Director for the IZA Institute of Labor Economics's programme "Labour Markets" and research fellow at CEPR. His research focuses mainly on labour economics and its relationship with macroeconomics. In 2001, he was awarded the Prize of the Best Young Economist of France for his contributions to economic research. He belongs to the most highly cited economists in France and Europe's leading labour economists.
Francis Kramarz is a French economist who works as Professor at the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (ENSAE), where he has been directing the Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST). He is one of the leading labour economists in France.
Holger Görg is a German economist who currently works as Professor of International Economics at the University of Kiel. Görg also leads the Kiel Center for Globalization and heads the Research Area "Global Division of Labour" at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. In 2009, he was awarded the Gossen Prize for his contributions to the study of firms' decisions to invest, export and outsource parts of their value chains abroad.
Edwin Leuven is a Dutch economist and Professor of Economics at the University of Oslo. He is one of the leading European education economists, with a focus on the economics of training.
Unemployment has been a serious social issue in China in recent years, regarding both an increase in quantity and an unequal impact on different social regions. The influence of foreign investment in China has greatly increased since the Open Door Policy was implemented in the early 1980s. The relationship between foreign-funded enterprises and urban labor market development is dual. Opponents influence the shape of labor-market regulation; however, foreign-funded enterprises have also become a major source of demand for urban and rural areas migrant workers. Demographic factors also affect unemployment in China, such as age and sex. The position of women in the labor market has been deteriorating, with a decline in labor force participation rate, rising unemployment, increased work intensity and a widening gender pay gap.
David Dorn is a Swiss economist and currently the UBS Professor of Globalization and Labor Markets at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on the interplay between globalization and labour markets. In 2014, his research was awarded the Excellence Award in Global Economic Affairs by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes is a Spanish economist, a Professor in the Economics and Business Management faculty at the University of California, Merced and a Professor and Department Chair at San Diego State University. Since 2015, she has been the Western Representative for a standing committee called the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP). Her field of work focuses on the fundamentals of labour economics and international migration, particularly the nature of immigration policies and its impact on migrant's assimilation into the community at a state and local level. Amuedo-Dorantes has published multiple articles in refereed journals including Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Population Economics, International Migration, and Journal of Development Economics.
Andrea Weber is an applied labor economist and currently a professor at the Central European University. She is a co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics.
Andries de Grip is a Dutch economist, academic, and author. He is a Professor of Economics at the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), School of Business and Economics (SBE), Maastricht University and has been Director of ROA from 2013 to 2020.
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