Projects
Continental convergence in the social trilemma? An empirical investigation into the balance of employment, adequate income provision, and fiscal restraint across the 50 United States and enlarged European Union University of Antwerp
A golden age for labour? Economic inequality and labour income after the Black Death: Flanders and Tuscany compared (1350-1500). University of Antwerp
A golden age for labour? Economic inequality and labour income after the Black Death: Flanders and Tuscany compared (1350-1500). University of Antwerp
Improving vaccine distribution supply chain design in low- and middle-income countries: a data-driven modelling approach. KU Leuven
Immunization substantially contributes to global health by saving millions of lives every year. Yet, a vast amount of people around the world, including nearly 20 to 25 million infants each year, have insufficient access to vaccines. Challenges related to the storage and distribution of vaccines persist, contributing to vaccination coverage rates that are below the required thresholds to reach herd immunity. Our research is motivated and ...
Employment, growth and distributional effects of public policy in an OLG setting with imperfect labour markets Ghent University
This doctoral thesis focuses on the distributional effects on fiscal policy, pension reform and migration policy. We develop several lifecycle models which take into account the characteristics of the European labour markets in a very realistic way. Afterwards, these models are used for policy analysis. Given that policies affect the distribution of income and welfare, what should policy makers do?
Inequality, consumption, and climate change policy: the demand side matters Ghent University
This research project studies the influence of inequality on an economy’s environmental impact and the implications of this influence for climate change mitigation policy. A key observation underlying this research project is that inequality influences a society's environmental impact through the effects of inequality on consumption: (1) inequality might induce increased positional consumption, and (2) low-income households tend to have ...
Economic inequality on the eve of the Late Medieval crisis. Two regions compared: Tuscany and Northern France (c.1295-c.1320) Ghent University
Since the Great Recession of 2007, research on the causes of economic inequality has been at the centre of both societal and academic debates, also among historians. Whereas most scholars have focused on contemporary and early modern societies, I propose to address this issue by using European rural society in the 14th century as a laboratory to study and explain the high pre-Black Death economic inequality suggested by previous studies. This ...
The wealth of cities. Economic growth and living standards in Brabant, Holland and Liège in the long run, 1500-1900. University of Antwerp
Equality, equity or need? Public opinion towards distributive justice in the changing welfare state KU Leuven
Contemporary Western societies are characterized by a de-structuring of the social contract of organized modernity. This brings along renewed discussions on distributive justice, i.e. how the burdens and benefits of our major institutions and social arrangements can be distributed fairly. Three principles of distributive justice are distinguished: (1) equity: distribution dependent on contributions; (2) equality: the same access to social ...