Marc Witte

Our department co-hosted the Dutch Development Economics (DuDE) PhD Workshop at the Tinbergen Institute on Friday, 31st October 2025.

📣 Thinking about studying Economics and Business Economics in Amsterdam?

Join us at the VU Bachelor’s Day on Friday November 7 and Saturday November 8 and get to know the Bachelor Economics and Business Economics (EBE) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

A few facts I wish more Dutch voters knew:

Can public attention shape justice?
In a forthcoming paper in the American Economic Review: Insights, our colleague @nadineketel.bsky.social (together with Olivier Marie and Kyra Hanemaaijer) explores how sudden surges in media attention, “salience shocks”, influence judicial decision-making.

"De Brexit is enorm meegevallen in economische zin!”

🚨 2-Year Postdocs in Dev Econ at Uni Copenhagen 🚨

Come work on some exciting experimental projects😀!

Dedicated time for your own research.

Reach out to hear more!

** PLEASE REPOST **🙏

Application deadline 🗓️: Nov 11

👉http://bit.ly/4q2Uehf

#EconSky

Blog your job market paper 2025: submissions now open

One of my favorite traditions is now underway: for the 15th straight year, the Development Impact blog launches a call for PhD students in development economics to blog their job market paper - submissions due 8pm EST on Wednesday November 5: blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Why don't firms publish pay in their job adverts?

We present the first experimental evidence on how (not) posting wages changes the applicant pool, and whether that gives firms a reason to hide wage info.

Great short thread by my co-author Lukas + link to the full paper👇

The return of the Puma Speedcat really shocked me...

🚨🚨New WP Alert (tinyurl.com/4sesthst)%F0...
@marcjosefwitte.bsky.social , @balgovamaria.bsky.social , Tsegay Tekleselassie, and I have a new working paper using a field experiment to study the causal impact of pay information in job adverts on application numbers and applicant skills. A🧵

@basvdklaauw.bsky.social -- is this something @economics-vu.bsky.social might consider?

Wouldn't even call them side alleys anymore, it's so blatantly obvious when looking at it from a certain distance

A) Hormuz?

D) Panama canal?

C) looks like Gibraltar

Ah, sorry: as a German it takes me 3-4 business days to process jokes, and certainly not on the weekend

But the article says that these buildings do have air conditioning:

"[...] they rely on energy-intensive air conditioning and heating systems to maintain a liveable internal temperature. [...] 'it is very quickly dramatic' if for any reason the air conditioning switches off".

@ingoisphording.bsky.social this last one goes out to you explicitly

Climate models since the 1970s nailed it—most predicted global warming almost exactly as it happened.

@askitas.bsky.social

on.ft.com/4nWM7Sy „Britain and Europe need to get serious about air conditioning“

This is surprising to hear -- I wonder if it varies so much on a local level? Here in Rotterdam, everything is communicated very clearly, well in advance, and documented both digitally and on paper. And it works very well in English (I don't speak Dutch either)

Iets minder jonge kinderen gevaccineerd Het RIVM meldt in zijn jaarrapportage dat de vaccinatiegraad onder kinderen tot 5 jaar licht lijkt te zijn afgenomen.

For vaccination to be effective, over 90% of kids need to be vaccinated (so diseases can’t spread). The Netherlands doesn’t hit this level for *any* childhood vaccine - and uptake is falling year on year.
In my experience the program is laughably bad. Next government should fix it!
nos.nl/l/2571726

Perfect set-up for a big house-cooling party?

Peak Dutch politics:
After three parties (BBB, NSC, VVD) couldn’t agree on who should be immigration minister, they’ve reached a compromise:
there will be three immigration ministers; one from each party

With great support from and hosted at the @tinbergeninstitute.bsky.social !

👥 Conference Organization

Our development group organized the 14th Dutch Development Economics (#DuDE2025) Network Conference this year.

The thing about Europe: it’s the actual land of the free now Europe’s very real problems don’t look so bad by comparison

The thing about Europe: it's the actual land of the free now.

Whatever problems Europe has - and it has plenty - it is looking pretty damn good by comparison these days.

My Charlemagne this week

www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

👥 Conference Participation
We are proud to announce that Nursena Aksunger, PhD candidate at VU Amsterdam School of Business and Economics, has been selected as one of only three young scientists from the Netherlands to participate in the 8th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Economic Sciences!

My department made it to Bluesky!