About us

The research group Economics & Public Policy (PEC) of Hasselt University is part of the Department of Economics. Our education focusses mainly on micro-economics, policy economics and public finance courses for the Faculty of Business Economics at Hasselt University. The research group was founded in 2012 and consists of approximately 15 collaborators (professors, post-docs, PhD students and research associates).

Building D Beautiful Weather

Building D Beautiful Weather

Professors
Postdoc
PhD Researchers
Research Associates

Professors

Prof. dr. Wim Marneffe

Wim has a PhD in Economics (Universiteit Hasselt) and is Professor since 2021. Wim is the manager of the research group 'Economics and Public Policy' at the Faculty of Business Economics. Wim performs multidisciplinary research, mostly related to policy evaluation. His fields of interest are Law and Economics, Health Economics and Impact Assessment. Among other things, he has worked on fundamental and/or applied research projects for the European Commission, European Parliament, Belgian Government and Flemish Government.

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 268 791
E wim.marneffe@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B53
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Prof. dr. dr. Samantha Bielen

Samantha has a PhD in Law (Antwerp Universiteit) and in Economics (Hasselt university). She received a postdoctoral fellowship of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) in 2016 and is assistant professor (Hasselt University) since 2017. Samantha is head of the research line “Litigation and Crime” in the research group Policy Management.

Samantha performs multidisciplinary research mostly in topics related to (civil and criminal) litigation and crime. Her fields of interest are Law and Economics, Economics of Crime, Economics of Litigation and Judge Behavior. Among other things, she has worked on projects for Belgian courts and prosecutor’s offices and the Belgian Ministry of Justice. Currently, she is also part of the core management group of the COST network entitled "Efficient Justice for All: Improving Court Efficiency through EU Benchmarking".

Curriculum Vitae (CV) (pdf, 162 KB)

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 268 714
E samantha.bielen@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B50
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Prof. dr. Willem Vanlaer

Professor dr. Willem Vanlaer is part of the research group headed by Prof. dr. Wim Marneffe. His research interests include macroeconomic topics such as the impact of debt (both public and private) on economic growth, investment and productivity and the role of uncertainty in explaining household savings. Moreover, Willem Vanlaer is a Project Manager at Roland Berger. Finally, he is a Lecturer in Macroeconomic Policy, assists Johan Van Overtveldt in teaching History of Economic Thought and acts as Coordinating Lecturer for Public Finances.

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 268 578
E willem.vanlaer@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B58
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Postdoc

Dr. Theo Jans

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 268 555
E theo.jans@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B54
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Dr. Lotte Daniels

Lotte Daniels (°1995) graduated as Business Engineer in Marketing Intelligence in 2018. In 2022, she obtained her PhD at Hasselt University (in the research group Economics and Public Policy). Her main research topics relate to health economics, more specifically defensive medicine and defensive communication about medical incidents.

Curriculum Vitae (CV) (pdf, 310 KB)

Contact information:

E lotte.daniels@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B56
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Dr. Janis Luyten

Janis Luyten (°1995) graduated as Master in Business Economics at Hasselt University in 2017 with a specialization in Policy Evaluation. Later that year he gained his first experience in academic research as a research associate to Prof. dr. Wim Marneffe. In 2021 he obtained his PhD in Business Economics at Hasselt University with his doctoral dissertation ‘Essays on the Impact of Implementing Electronic Health Records in a Hospital Setting’. He conducted postdoctoral research focusing primarily on health economics, policy evaluation, public administration, and administrative simplification in the public and healthcare sector. In addition, he was involved in a broad array of multidisciplinary academic research projects funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), The Belgian National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (RIZIV/INAMI), Interreg, and HORIZON2020. He currently is a Visiting Research Fellow at PEC.

Curriculum Vitae (CV) (pdf, 161 KB)

Contact information:

E janis.luyten@uhasselt.be
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Dr. Tom Vandersteegen

Tom is a business developer in the Research Centre for Regional Analysis (Onderzoekscentrum Regioanalyse - ORA). As a gateway between the region and research groups at Hasselt University, he is responsible for detecting and coordinating research questions regarding regional analyses in all (policy) areas. He is also a postdoctoral researcher in the research group Economics and Public Policy (PEC) at the Faculty of Business Economics.

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 268 740
E tom.vandersteegen@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B55
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

PhD Researchers

Maarten Colson

As an entrepreneurship scholar, Maarten is affiliated with RCEF and PEC and performs multidisciplinary research related to entrepreneurial governance and institutional economics. His work focuses on topics such as explaining entrepreneurial activity and unravelling entrepreneurial decision-making related to new firm creation processes and entrepreneurial growth. He firmly believes in striving to produce evidence-based practical implications through rigorous research to foster entrepreneurship and subsequent economic and societal growth. Next to being involved in several applied research projects with external entrepreneurship stakeholders, Maarten teaches courses in business economics and policy management and co-supervises several master theses each year.

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 269 007
E maarten.colson@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B173
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Diana Danciu

Diana has a Master’s Degree in European Studies and International Relations from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and a Bachelor Degree in Political Studies from Babes-Bolyai University in Romania. She has experience working in Brussels and Amsterdam for NGOs engaged in advocacy around the EU and the UN. She followed topic-specific courses of the Business Economics program at Hasselt University in Belgium. Here she redefined her interest in the EU policy making process, placing it, together with evidence-based decision-making models at the center of her PhD. Her main areas of interest are the regulatory process of the EU, the use of quantification in Regulatory Impact Assessments and the meaning of European Added Value in policy-making.

Teaching

Beleidsevaluatie 3406

Beleidsmanagement 3883

Cost-Benefit Analysis 3523

Cost-Benefit Analysis 4608

Quantitative Economics 1706

Toepassingen in beleidsevaluatie 4044

Contact information:

E diana-maria.danciu@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B57
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Marie-Lien Gerits

Marie-Lien Gerits (°1999) graduated as Master in Business Economics (Policy Management) at Hasselt University in 2021. She worked as a research associate to Prof. dr. dr. Samantha Bielen from September until December 2021. She works as a PhD Student to Prof. dr. dr. Samantha Bielen since Januari 2022.

Contact information:

E marielien.gerits@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B56
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Sarah Misplon

Sarah Misplon (°1979) graduated in 2001. After almost 20 years of work experience in hospitals and consultancy, she started in 2018 as a PhD Student in the research group Economics and Public Policy at Hasselt University. This PhD is a cooperation between Möbius, a consultancy firm and Hasselt University. During her PhD, Sarah will develop a methodology to calculate costs and outcomes of care pathways. This will result in a benchmark for hospitals to compare outcomes and costs of care pathways.

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 268 706
E sarah.misplon@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B57
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Diego Vaes

Diego Vaes (°1988) graduated as Master in Business Economics – Policy Management in 2010. Then, he worked successively as a policy advisor in the Flemish Parliament and as a financial economist at the Flemish Regulator for the Media. In 2020, he first worked as a research associate in the research group Economics and Public Policy, after which he started his PhD trajectory in the field of Law and Economics in April 2020. In his PhD, he employs Natural Language Processing techniques and text-as-data approaches to study legal documents.

Contact information:

T +32(0)11 268 744
E diego.vaes@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B56
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Research Associates

Wouter Bos

Wouter Bos is a member of the Economics and Public Policy research group at Hasselt University. He conducts research into the impact of policy measures on citizens and businesses. He has a special interest in behavioral economics, digitization and simplification. He also works as a research fellow (PhD Researcher) to Prof. dr. Wim Marneffe since September 2022.

Contact information:

E wouter.bos@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B72
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Toon Moons

As a member of the research group Economics and Public Policy at Hasselt University, Toon does research on the impact of government policies on citizens and enterprises. He is especially interested in the circular economy, digitalization and simplification. During his studies, he worked as an intern for the Flemish government on a study about the opportunities and threats for a renovation in Flanders.

Contact information:

E toon.moons@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B72
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Ulrike Uitdebroeks

As a member of the research group Economics and Public Policy at Hasselt University, Ulrike does research on the impact of government policies on citizens and enterprises.

Contact information:

E ulrike.uitdebroeks@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B72
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium

Cato Thommis

As a member of the research group Economics and Public Policy at Hasselt University, Cato does research on the impact of government policies on citizens and enterprises. Cato has a Master's Degree in Business Administration and an Educational Master in Economics, as well as a Bachelor's Degree in Communication Management.

Contact information:

E cato.thommis@uhasselt.be
Campus Diepenbeek Building D | Office B72
Agoralaan 3590 Diepenbeek | Belgium