Meet Jan van Ours

When I was a student, I put a lot of effort into studying. Sometimes I was also very critical towards my teachers. Once I had to do an assignment for one of the courses where I had to say something about the limited supply of silver. The teacher wanted me to answer the question: how many years of silver are left? And he insisted there were numbers available on this topic. But I said it was impossible to answer. The numbers were all wrong, there is an indefinite supply of silver, but it will just get very expensive in the end. 

Applying methodology to different research topics 

Often, I got my research ideas by coincidence. For instance, I was working on labour market issues, looking at transitions from one state in the labour market to the next state. Finding a job or the other way around, losing your job. Then I realised you could apply the methodology to drug use as well. People don't use drugs when they are young, they start using later. This is also a transition from non-use to use. When they eventually quit using drugs, there is a transition from use to non-use. When I realised that application was possible, I started looking for appropriate data. In this case, the methodology inspired me to think out of the box. 

Other times, I’ve met people at a conference, where we started talking. It would sometimes start a collaboration, if our research interests aligned. 

My best work 

When you ask me what my best work is, I can't say there is one in particular, but there are several publications I am happy about. I did a couple of publications about price sensitivity of opium use in Indonesia. For this research, I looked at what happened to opium use when they changed the policy of the government.  

Some other research I did was in sports economics where I looked at whether it makes sense to fire a football coach. The main conclusion there is: no, it doesn't make sense, but still it happens. 

'You should enjoy what you're doing.'

Favourite topics to teach 

I am now retired, but when I taught sports economics and labour economics, I didn't have a specific preference of one over the other. However, I did like some topics more than others. When I taught a labour course, I liked to talk about the minimum wage. It is simple in its set up, but it has some interesting implication depending on how you think that the labour market is organised. 

When I talked about sports economics, I liked to talk about dismissal of coaches, because I have done some work on that. I would try to show to the students that such dismissal doesn't make sense and then provide the motivation of why it still happens.  

When I was teaching, I tried to provide good slides, overheads, and modern-day examples that made sense to students. I liked to show that what I was talking about meant something in real life. For instance, there was a discussion going on here in the Netherlands about minimum wage, and I tried to incorporate those examples into my teaching.  

Life motto  

My life motto is you should enjoy what you're doing. I supervised many theses and I always tried to get students into a state of mind of enjoyment. They shouldn't see it as an obligation which they have to fulfil to obtain a certain grade, but enjoy the process!