prof. dr. Bas Jacobs

About Bas Jacobs

Prof. Dr. Bas Jacobs is a professor of economics and public finance at the School of Economics and Business at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Jacobs is analytical, sharp, and passionate; he can speak about complex economic issues in clear language with fervor.

Jacobs is a descendant of Jan Tinbergen. He draws his scientific inspiration from policy practice. His research interests are broad: public finance, taxation, macroeconomics, welfare economics, labor market economics, and education economics. He has collaborated with (among others) Lans Bovenberg, Casper van Ewijk, James Heckman (Nobel Prize 2000), Ruud de Mooij, Rick van der Ploeg, and Sweder van Wijnbergen. In addition to his academic work, Jacobs has written numerous policy articles on the Great Recession, budget policy, tax policy, aging, student financing, innovation policy, pensions, and the housing market.

Jacobs is an essayist for Vrij Nederland and regularly writes for Economisch Statistische Berichten. Additionally, he hosts a podcast titled ‘… and free beer’ about the 2023 elections on BNR. He is also an advisor to the pension funds of ING and IBM. He frequently writes in newspapers and can be heard on the radio or seen on television.

After his PhD, Jacobs was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam from 2002 to 2005. From 2005 to 2007, he was an assistant professor at the Universities of Amsterdam and Tilburg. From 1997 to 2004, Jacobs also worked part-time at the CPB. In 2004-2005, Jacobs was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. From 2007 until 2022, Jacobs was a professor at the Erasmus School of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He conducted guest research at the Universities of Chicago (2003), Munich (2008), Uppsala (2010), and Berkeley (2014). Jacobs served as the chairman of the Royal Dutch Association for Economics from 2014 to 2018. He has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the IMF. In 2018-2019, Jacobs was the Willem Duisenberg Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study.

In 2015, he published The Price of Equality (Bert Bakker-Prometheus). Frank Kalshoven: “Bas Jacobs is a rare economist. He combines scientific excellence and independence in his thinking with great passion for policy.” Rick van der Ploeg: “With The Price of Equality, Bas Jacobs effortlessly joins the eminent company of top scholars like Stiglitz and Piketty.”