ERSA Office

Louvain-La-Neuve

BELGIUM

25th AUGUST 2015

The EIB-ERSA Prize 2015 is awarded to Jan Oosterhaven, professor of Spatial Economics at University of Groningen in the Netherlands, for his lifetime contribution to regional science.

The independent jury praises Jan Oosterhaven for his numerous contributions to interregional input-output analysis, regional economic modelling, assessing economic impacts of infrastructure, and the evaluation of regional and urban policies.

The EIB - European Prize in Regional Science has been created to acknowledge outstanding regional scientists at the European level and to increase the image of ERSA in the scientific world. The prize is awarded by an independent jury, which consists of six eminent regional scientists, four from Europe, one from the Americas and one from the rest of the world.

The awarding ceremony will take place on Friday 28th August 2015 during the closing ceremony of the ERSA Congress 2015 in Lisbon (Portugal). Jan Oosterhaven will give a presentation of a new model for estimating the economic impacts of disasters and trade boycotts. The new model combines the simplicity of an interregional input-output model with the plausibility of a spatial general equilibrium model.

Jan Oosterhaven is internationally known for developing new methods to consistently construct interregional input-output tables and applying these to the European Union for the period 1960-1990. He also contributed to the consistent incorporation of supply shocks in the demand driven input-output model and to the correct incorporation of the wider economic impacts of transport infrastructure into social cost-benefit analyses of investments.

In the Netherlands, Jan Oosterhaven has been involved in many high policy impact studies including the estimation of the indirect effects of the relocation of the Headquarters of the former PTT from The Hague to Groningen, the evaluation of land reclamation plans for a part of the Wadden Sea, and the operation of high-speed rail lines within the central Randstad region and from the Randstad to the peripheral North (the Zuiderzeelijn).Jan Oosterhaven has been acknowledged for his scientific work with the Fellowship Awards of the International Input-Output Association and the Regional Science Association International and was appointed as an Officer in the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau by her Majesty the Queen.

Guy Clausse, Dean of the European Investment Bank Institute, commented: “Regional policy is an important part of the internal policy of the EU as well as of many Member States; therefore it is all the more important that regional policy be based on a sound scientific base. Professor Oosterhaven clearly contributes to laying such base.”

You can download an original press release here.

Further information about the EIB-ERSA prize is available here. 

Photo: epijn van den Broeke