Lans Bovenberg is regarded as an exceptionally innovative and authoritative economist. After 33 years as a professor, he is retiring, although he will remain involved with EETI. Over the years, Bovenberg has become milder, he says. "The economy of the future revolves around a new way of working together".
Why retire now? prof. Bovenberg says: "Today I give my farewell speech at the age of 64, even though I have always advocated a higher retirement age. How is that possible? Well, this end is a new beginning. I will continue to work, but as a self-employed, in order to continue to contribute to my great current mission: better and, above all, more humane, economics education."
He therefore argues for the integration of citizenship education in economics at secondary education: "There is a lot of embarrassment surrounding citizenship education: it has a moralizing halo. But I have good news for you. Economics education lends itself well to teaching citizenship. Both citizenship and economics education benefit from this. Both become two-legged. By also focusing on economics education, citizenship education becomes less floaty. It is anchored in a robust scientific, conceptual and practical foundation. Instead of being based on goodwill and wishful thinking alone, citizenship education gains empirical guidance on how people actually behave and what they actually value. Young people do not have to be manipulated to embrace citizenship, they can choose it voluntarily out of enlightened self-interest. The school does not choose not for the student but does offer them the choice."
Read the interviews of various media with Prof. Lans Bovenberg via the link below.
- CV
Prof. Dr A. L. (Lans) Bovenberg studied econometrics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Bovenberg received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently became a policy officer at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC. He then returned to the Netherlands and worked at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Between 1990 and 2002 he was part-time professor at Erasmus University. From 1992 he also worked at Tilburg University, where he was appointed professor in 1998. Between 1995 and 1998 he was deputy director of the Office of Central Planning. In 2003 Bovenberg won the Spinoza Prize for his research into environmental taxes. With the prize money, he and Theo Nijman set up Netspar, a knowledge network in the field of pensions and ageing.
- More information
On January 1, 2016, Lans Bovenberg was appointed to the F.J.D Goldschmeding chair in Tilburg, aimed at innovation in economics education. Together with the Goldschmeding Foundation and the Stichting Innovatie Economie Onderwijs (SIEO), he is looking for ways to teach economics in secondary education based on recent scientific insights about the importance of cooperation, trust and reciprocity.
Bovenberg publishes in various fields: public finance, macroeconomics and monetary economics, pensions and ageing, environmental economics, institutional and financial economics, labor market, labor and care, health care, culture and economics, theology and economics, social security, as well as privatization and market forces.
- Related links
- Interview in FD
Interview in Trouw
Interview in UvT magazine
Interview in Volkskrant
Interview in AD