Faculty of Economics and Business

Extinction Rebellion has achieved what academics could not, says Bert Scholtens, Professor of Sustainable Banking and Finance. The environmental movement has put the massive and pervasive subsidies for fossil fuels on the political agenda. The rebels have a cause and are making it clear that fossil fuels are a curse, not a blessing. It is time to phase out fossil fuel subsidies for a healthier and more sustainable planet.

Using new data on the export income of workers, researchers Hagen Kruse, Marcel Timmer, Gaaitzen de Vries and Xianjia Ye explored the activity specialization of fifty-two economies during 2000-18. They found strong patterns over income: while low-income economies tend to specialize in production activities, rich economies earn most export income from non-production activities (such as engineering or management).

Before the summer, the city of Barcelona garnered attention for more than just FC Barcelona's first La Liga victory without Lionel Messi. The Barcelona city council approved a new delivery tax aimed at addressing a growing list of issues tied to home deliveries—emissions, safety hazards, and traffic congestion, to name a few. One of the ambitious targets is to have 40% of e-commerce purchases delivered to pick-up points instead of directly to consumers' homes. But as cities like Barcelona wrestle with home delivery issues, a question looms large: Is out-of-home delivery truly the more sustainable alternative?

When she was still a marketing student at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Freya Liemburg already ran two businesses through which she acquired valuable entrepreneurial knowledge and shared her marketing insights with other companies and like-minded online entrepreneurs. Now, she is the managing director of the Customer Insights Center, one of the Centres of Expertise that are part of FEB. We talked to Liemburg about her career, the Customer Insights Center and the value of applied research carried out in close collaboration with companies. 

In her research, Marloes Korendijk focuses on Corporate Social Responsibilty within multinationals. Since she studies working relationships that cross countries, it was only logical for her to also take this international, cross-cultural approach in her entire PhD trajectory. She thus decided to go for a Joint Doctorate and is a PhD candidate at both the Faculty of Economics and Business in Groningen and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.  Recently, she also visited the University of Washington in Seattle as a research scholar. Soon, she will go on to Sydney to finish her PhD. FEB Research talked to Korendijk about her research, her experiences abroad and the importance of embedding yourself in other cultures as a researcher. 

Associate Professor of International Economics Tristan Kohl recently received a grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). He got the grant for research on how lobbying by firms and non-governmental organizations shapes the rules on international trade. FEB Research talked to Kohl about his NWO project and the value of understanding how trade policies are formed and how they shape the economic environment. 

Professor of Energy Economics Machiel Mulder was appointed as a member of the Scientific Climate Council by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy this April. As experts in relevant fields, Mulder and his fellow council members will advise the government on climate policy. We talked to Mulder about his research on the economics of the energy transition, in particular the economic value of hydrogen, hydrogen’s potential role in the energy transition and the importance of accelerating this transition.

Edlira Shehu recently joined the Faculty of Economics and Business as Professor of Digital Marketing. Before coming to Groningen, she worked at universities in Germany and Denmark. Having also worked in the industry in different management positions in the field of marketing analytics, Shehu brings a lot of practical experience to the table. She knows how to bridge the knowledge gap between academia and practice with her research focused on the challenges and opportunities of digital marketing. Shehu often collaborates with industry partners and aims to help organizations improve their marketing activities with state-of-the-art methods. Having collaborated with colleagues from Groningen’s Department of Marketing before, she felt her research profile fits well within the department. So, at the start of 2023, she made the move. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were all confronted with a new model of holding virtual meetings. We struggled with the limitations of such meetings, while at the same time, we also saw some of the opportunities these meetings might have. Professor of International Finance Niels Hermes, together with Dennis Veltrop (Associate professor of Corporate Governance at FEB) and Trond Randøy (Copenhagen Business School), decided to study the consequences such meetings may have for meetings of boards of large companies and the quality of their decision making. In this blog, he shares their findings and discusses what they might mean for the future of board meetings and decision-making processes.