Labour Economics and Welfare

Research interests

Our research is focused on two complementary research fields: labour and welfare economics. Within these fields our aim is finding responses to “real world” societal questions within a rigorous framework. Our analysis is both empirical and theoretical. While most of our research is grounded in economics, a substantial fraction of our research relies on collaborations with researchers from other disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, communication and public administration. Main topics of research include, among others, policy evaluation, unemployment, the transition from school to work, discrimination, work and health, inequality, income mobility, optimal taxation and the measurement of (individual) welfare and well-being. 

Key publications

• Andrea Albanese, Bart Cockx and Muriel Dejemeppe (2024). "Long-Term Effects of Hiring Subsidies for Low-Educated Unemployed Youths", Journal of Public Economics, volume 235, 105137
• Vieider, Ferdinand M. (2024). "Decisions under Uncertainty as Bayesian Inference on Choice Options." Management Science , p.1-18

• Brown, Alexander L., Taisuke Imai, Ferdinand M. Vieider, and Colin F. Camerer (2024). Meta-Analysis of Empirical Estimates of Loss Aversion.  Journal of Economic Literature  62(3), 485–616

• El-Berry, N. A. M., Naert, F., & Goeminne, S. (2023). Optimal public debt composition during debt crises : a review of theoretical literature. Journal of Economic surveys, 37(2), 351–376.

• Cockx Bart, Michael Lechner and Joost Bollens (2023). "Priority to Unemployed Immigrants. A Causal Machine Learning Evaluation of Training in Belgium".  Labour Economics,80, 102306.

• Arthur Jacobs, Elsy Verhofstadt, Luc Van Ootegem (2023). "Unravelling the link between automatability and job satisfaction", Journal of Labor research. 44. p.199-227

• Louis Lippens, Siel Vermeiren, Stijn Baert (2023). "The state of hiring discrimination : a meta-analysis of (almost) all recent correspondence experiments", European Economic Review. 151.

• Di Falco, Salvatore, and Ferdinand M. Vieider (2022). Environmental Adaptation of Risk Preferences. Economic Journal 132(648), 2737–2766

• Lieze Sohier, Bart Defloor, Luc Van Ootegem, Elsy Verhofstadt (2022). "Determinants of the willingness to retire of older workers in Europe", Social Indicators Research. 164(3). p.1017-1041
• Simon Amez , Sunčica Vujić, Lieven De Marez and Stijn Baert (2022). Smartphone use and academic performance : first evidence from longitudinal data. New Media & Society
• El-Berry, N. A. M., & Goeminne, S. (2021). Fiscal transparency, fiscal forecasting and budget credibility in developing countries. Journal of forecasting, 40(1), 144–161.
• Figueroa, J.L. en D. Van de gaer (2021), Did Progressa Reduce Inequality of Opportunity for School Reenrollment?, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 69, pp541-567.

Recent PhD graduates

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

• Jinkai Li, October 2024, The wellbeing of left-behind children and migrant children under rural-urban migration in China. 
• Philippe Sterkens, April 2024, The burnout aftermath: stigma as a persistent threat to (re-employment)
• Louis Lippens, August 2023, Recruiter says 'no' : measuring and explaining labour market discrimination
• Abel Ghekiere, May 2023, Better luck next time... New methodological approaches to understanding and reducing the mechanisms of rental discrimination
• Astrid Buchmayr, January 2023, Development and application of a holistic sustainability assessment of energy technologies (Ghent University)
• Hannah Van Borm, November 2021, An Arab, a woman, and an old guy walk into a job interview: Examining explanations for discrimination in hiring
• Simon Amez, July 2021, Scroll, study, sleep, repeat! Examining the toxic love triangle between smartphone use, sleep quality and academic performance
• Brecht Neyt, August 2020, How decisions in school affect how easily you find a job (and a date) (UGent) 
• Stefanie Vanneste, April 2020, The effect of politics on the financial performance of Flemish local governments (Vlaamse Overheid)
• Haya Al-Ajlani, January 2020, Well-being and state fragility : a non-paternalistic approach to well-being, a conceptual index of state fragility, and their relation
• Benjamin Schalembier, April 2019, How relative income affects life satisfaction (Flemish Government Department for Work & Social Economy)
• Lieze Sohier, December 2018, Involuntary employment and well-being of older workers and retirees
• Eva Van Belle, June 2018, Getting Stuck in Unemployment: Pitfalls and Helping Hands (Université de Neuchâtel)
• Yannick Thuy, September 2016, Age, women, and employment: an evaluation (Planbureau)
• Jose Figueroa Oropeza, December 2015, Children's opportunities and impact evaluation (International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, USA)