Econ 050

Natural gas has been the Netherlands' blessing and Groningen's curse in recent decades. Even as quotas are reduced ever further, earthquakes induced by natural gas extraction continue to jolt the province on a nearly daily basis. But the country and the world need energy, and professor Ad van Wijk from TU Delft believes he has at least part of the solution: green hydrogen. Professor van Wijk helped to developed an extremely ambitious plan to convert the northern Netherlands into a green hydrogen hub, from production to distribution and transportation – but how plausible are those plans, and how much will they cost? We sat down with professor Van Wijk to hear more about this up-and-coming source of energy and what it could mean for the north.

The measles were effectively eradicated in much of the western world decades ago, yet the potentially fatal disease has made a fierce comeback in America and Europe due to growing anti-vaccination movements. What are the health costs of enforcing sufficient vaccine coverage in a country? How does a country choose which illnesses to vaccinate against – and how does the Netherlands' vaccination coverage stand up to the rest of the world? Professor of Global Health Economics Maarten Postma joined us in the studio to talk about how the conversation and science around vaccines has changed in recent decades, and about the costs of medical action and inaction when it comes to inoculation.

What will the north look like in the future? Will it become the next Silicon Valley – and is that something we actually want to become? The tech industry is one of the region's growing strong suits, but what does that really mean for job opportunities today and in the years to come? Nick Stevens, the Chief Digital Officer in Groningen, says that part of figuring out what the future holds for Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland is getting the cities and provinces to look beyond their own borders and recognize themselves as part of a single region. We sat down with him for a wide-ranging interview about the role of local government, businesses and educational institutions in developing and executing a new vision for the north.

For many internationals, food is an integral part of your sense of cultural identity, and moving abroad can often mean finding yourself longing for your favorites from home and missing the social element of a shared meal. But a region's food scene is also very much an economic and business matter: how do you balance out chains and locally owned establishments? How does having a big student population influence the dining scene in a city? How cost effective is it to own and operate a food truck in a country that isn't exactly known for excellent weather? Through her culinary blog De Smaak van Stad, freelance journalist Saskia Jonker has gotten a taste for what's happening in the culinary world across the north, and she sat down with us to share her thoughts on the latest food trends and her personal favorite places to grab a bite in Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland.

Post-doctoral candidate Magda Ulceluse researches the intersection of immigration, employment and income equality. There are more than 9,000 businesses in the north that are owned by first generation immigrants, and work and education are what bring many immigrants here originally, but dual career partners and university graduates also need to find work. Is there any truth to the claims that immigrants steal jobs from the native population? What is the balance of brain drain and brain gain among member states? Ulceluse joined us in the studio to try and sort truth from fiction when it comes to migrants, job creation and economic growth.

What do the modern day Ivory Coast and the 19th century Netherlands have in common? According to research from the Groningen Growth and Development Center, the size of their economies is virtually identical. Professor Robert Inklaar, who is a participant in the Growth and Development Center, says that one of the center's most powerful tools is the Penn World Table, which gathers data about the economic output and productivity of 180 countries around the world all the way back to the 1950s and even further in some cases. But what are the best ways to compare economic performance? How can intangible digital products and services be accounted for in measuring prosperity? We sat down with professor Inklaar to hear all about the past, present and even future of using data to figure out just how well any given country's economy is doing.

Imagine you're on the banks of a river, watching the white water rapids rage past you. You're surrounded by a group of your closest friends who booked a rafting trip, but you're scared. You are deathly afraid that the raft will tip over, and you've heard horror stories about people drowning in these waters. In theory, you could still refuse to get into the raft, but everyone else is getting in, and you don't want to disappoint your friends. So, you get in. The raft starts moving along and gradually gains speed. The waters aren't too wild yet, so you could still get out at this point, but it's already a dangerous situation. You keep going and going, faster and faster, and then, the raft flips. This is how assistant professor Kristina Linke describes the process of how corporate executives find themselves gradually but inevitably crossing ethical lines professionally. In principle, they can see the danger coming from a mile away, but in practice, it can be just as scary to try and get out before certain disaster strikes. We sat down with assistant professor Linke to hear about just how easy – and common – it is for corporate staff to slide into financial fraud.

If climate change is global, why do so many countries, even those at direct risk of its consequences like the low-lying Netherlands, still seem to see it as a zero sum game? How can politicians, including those in the climate change denying populist party Forum for Democracy who won a large share of the vote this week, and companies be made to look beyond their own national borders and coffers to make change now? Associate professor Pim Heijnen has been researching ways to avoid climate catastrophe through cooperation, so I wanted to hear more from him about why it seems so hard for individual countries to put long term global interests above short term national interests.

Water management may not seem like an especially sexy topic, but in a country where about one-third of the ground is below sea level, it can be a matter of life or death. Water management has been a part of Dutch history since long before the Netherlands was even a single unified country, but most Dutch people don't exactly know what the government entity that manages the water, the water boards, actually do. Even though the concept of making sure that the country doesn't end up underwater seems pretty uncontroversial, there is a political side to water boards – should they focus exclusively on keeping water clean and keeping the land dry, or should they also be responsible for recreational use? Should the agricultural sector be charged more than private households for their water use? Corine Houben is a researcher at COELO, the Center for Research of local governments, recently carried out research into the difference in water board taxation rates across the country, so Econ 050 wanted to find out what this vitally important but little understood branch of government really does, and why your vote matters.

Maite Lameris is a PhD candidate and lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business and has been working on research on new ways to see how a person's political values correspond with how happy they are and how they vote. Lameris and her fellow researchers have also developed four new dimensions for measuring political identity to go beyond the limitations of leftwing versus rightwing.