What do you like most about your job?

I am a Principal Economist at De Nederlandsche Bank and a part-time lecturer at the Amsterdam School of Economics. What I like the most about this combination is that I share examples of real policy problems with students. I then connect them to the theory we covered. I particularly enjoy seeing students thinking critically about the how well the theories can explain the real policy problems we discuss.

Which project or research from the past year are you most proud of?

I am particularly happy about my collaboration with Professor Cars Hommes. During our collaboration we have worked on projects that have been published or will be published in very good journals. One of those projects is our joint work with Mei Zhu (Shanghai University) and our former PhD student Tolga Ozden (Bank of Canada) on ‘Behavioral Learning Equilibria in the New-Keynesian Model’. The project deals with bounded rationality in decision-making and analyses its implications for the design of monetary policy. Our work attracted some attention not only academically but at the policy end as well. At the time of the writing of the paper, major central banks were undergoing their strategy review. One of the important topics considered was the insights from models allowing for bounded rationality. Our work touched upon this highly policy relevant issue.

What don’t most colleagues know about you?

Maybe something very few of my colleagues know is that I enjoy sailing on the Greek islands in the summer. I really like this feeling of sailing and hopping on and off different small islands, mostly in the Aegean Sea.