Interdisciplinary research

Research interests

1. Mathematical and statistical modelling

The members of this group conduct research in the field of mathematical and statistical modeling. More specifically, they focus on methodological issues that arise when using or selecting the appropriate model. The members are also involved in interdisciplinary research in which their quantitative expertise is an added value.

2. Labour market discrimination / Transition from school to work / Work and health

In this study of the labour market, we collaborate with psychologists, sociologists and health scientists, among others. In particular, we work on topics that are also studied in their fields, such as burn-out and labour market discrimination. The interdisciplinary approach of this research will only increase in the coming years as Stijn Baert is the leader of UGent @ Work, the platform that brings together all UGent professors that conduct research on work and the labor market. Stijn Baert is also Academic Editor of the well-known multidisciplinary journal Plos One.

3. Historical Economics and Econometric History

The members of this group collaborate to analyze the functioning of the economy in the past with a view of understanding the past but also to point out how our economy today has been shaped by that past. Historical Economics is mainly the work of a collaboration between economists and historians.

4. Complex social and economic systems

The Complex Systems Institute is an interdisciplinary research group for the study of critical events in complex social and economic systems.
New theories of complex systems, a surge in computational capacity and abundant Big data have produced disruptive new insights that reach across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The Complex Systems Institute at Ghent University was set up as a result of this revolution and aims to bring together researchers interested in studying nature from a systems perspective, using data and network sciences, statistical physics and computational modelling.

Key publications

1. Mathematical and statistical modelling

• Philippe Carette and Marie-Anne Guerry (2022). Markov models for duration-dependent transitions : selecting the states using duration values or duration intervals? Statistical methods and applications
• Marie-Anne Guerry and Philippe Carette (2020). On monotonically proceeding structures and stepwise increasing transition matrices of Markov chains, Communications in statistics-theory and Methods
• Mieke Audenaert, Philippe Carette, Lynn M. Shore, Thomas Lange, Thomas Van Waeyenberg and Adelien Decramer (2018). Leader-employee congruence of expected contributions in the employee-organization relationship, Leadership Quarterly. 29(3). p.414-422

2. Labour market discrimination / Transition from school to work / Work and health

• Eva Van Belle, Ralf Caers, Laure Cuypers, Marijke De Couck, Brecht Neyt, Hannah Van Borm, Stijn Baert (2020). What do student jobs on graduate CVs signal to employers?, Economics of Education Review. 
• Eva Van Belle, Valentina Di Stasio, Ralf Caers, Marijke De Couck and Stijn Baert (2018). Why Are Employers Put Off by Long Spells of Unemployment?, European Sociological Review. 34(6). p.694-710
• Stijn Baert (2018). Facebook profile picture appearance affects recruiters’ first hiring decisions, New Media & Society.20(3).p.1220-1239
• Jens Detollenaere, Sara Willems, Stijn Baert (2017). Volunteering, income and health, Plos one. 12(3).

3. Historical Economics and Econometric History

• Nicolas Devijlder and Koen Schoors (2019). Land rights, local financial development and industrial activity: evidence from Flanders (19th – early 20th century), Cliometrica
• Frank Caestecker, Stan Pannier (2019). Pioniers in het consumptiekrediet tijdens de Belle Epoque, Belgisch Tijdschrift Nieuwste Geschiedenis, L, 2, pp.60-87

• Frank Caestecker, Peter Scholliers (2019). Arbeidsmarkt van de Belgische mijnen in de twintigste eeuw, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 97, 4, pp.187-204.

• Frank Caestecker, Eric Vanhaute (2012). Die Anwerbung von Arbeitskräften für Westeuropa und die europäische Arbeitsmarktintegration, Das „Gastarbeiter“-System. Arbeitsmigration und ihre Folgen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Westeuropa. München , Oldenburg (Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte), pp.39-52

4. Complex social and economic systems

• F Zarei, Y Gandica, LEC Rocha. (2024). Bursts of communication increase opinion diversity in the temporal Deffuant model. Scientific Reports 14:2222 
• R Jing, LEC Rocha. (2023). A network-based strategy of price correlations for optimal cryptocurrency portfolios. Finance Research Letters 58(C):104503
• LEC Rocha, P Holme, CDG Linhares. (2022). The global migration network of sex-workers. Journal of Computational Social Science 5:969–985
• LEC Rocha, J Ryckebusch, K Schoors, M Smith (2021). The scaling of social interactions across animal species. Scientific Reports 11:12584
• Andres M Belaza Vallejo , Jan Ryckebusch, Koen Schoors, Luis E C Rocha and Benjamin Vandermarliere (2020). On the connection between real-world circumstances and online player behaviour: The case of EVE Online, Plos one. 15(10).
• Nicola Perra and Luis E C Rocha (2019), Modelling opinion dynamics in the age of algorithmic personalisation, Scientific Reports. 9.

• Luis E C Rocha, Anna E. Thorson, Renaud Lambiotte and Fredrik Liljeros (2016). Respondent-driven sampling bias induced by community structure and response rates in social networks, Journal of the royal statistical society series A-Statistics in Society. 180(1). p.99-118

• Jean-Charles Delvenne, Renaud Lambiotte and Luis E C Rocha (2015). Diffusion on networked systems is a question of time or structure, Nature Communications. 6.

Recent PhD graduates

_{First or current placement (when available) in parenthesis}

• Bart De Clerck, September 2024, Identifying online misinformation and disinformation spreading using graph theory
• Martín Adolfo Valdez Quintero, June 2024, Essays in distributional macroeconomics and political economy
• Kevin Hoefman, November 2020, Live agent-based models
• Brecht Neyt, August 2020, How decisions in school affect how easily you find a job (and a date) 
• Eline D'haene, June 2020, The Devil is in the details: disclosing the impact of religion on the milk system in Ethiopia 
• Andres M Belaza Vallejo, January 2020, Statistical physics of social-economic systems in real and virtual worlds 
• Milan Van Den Heuvel, September 2019, Addressing socioeconomic challenges with micro-level trace data