Chen Li, Krzysztof Postek and Bastian Ravesteijn all win a NWO Veni grant

Adhemare de Rijk, Funding Manager Research at Erasmus School of Economics, is very proud of the achievement of Chen, Krzysztof and Bastian: ‘It was a pleasure to be working with them during the whole application process and it is very rewarding to see that their efforts and talents are recognised. I am thankful for our broad and invaluable faculty network and happy to see the effectiveness of our research support system.’

Chen Li

Chen Li is an assistant professor in Behavioural Economics at Erasmus School of Economics. Chen focuses on decision making under uncertainty and over time. Her research addresses questions such as whether the poor are more averse to ambiguity, how learning affect people's ambiguity attitudes, and how people's beliefs and attitudes towards uncertainty affect their decisions in social interactions. Chen’s NWO Veni project is called “Trapped in Gender Stereotypes?” and addresses the topic of gender equality: invisible stereotypes keep holding people back. This project uses techniques from behavioral economics to reduce stereotypes. It delivers a new measure of stereotypes and the resulting welfare costs, identifies biases that trap people in stereotypes, and provides new inequality-reducing tools.

Krzysztof Postek

Krzysztof Postek is an assistant professor of Operations Research at the Econometrics department of Erasmus School of Economics. Krzysztof’s primary research area is (robust) optimisation under uncertainty with continuous and integer decision variables. Krzysztof’s NWO Veni project is called “Solving large-scale adjustable robust optimization problems with machine learning” and addresses multi-stage optimization under uncertainty, such as public transport scheduling or flood protection, which involves sequential decision making and information inflow. The aim of this project is to combine adjustable robust optimization with machine learning to obtain best-possible decisions.

Bastian Ravesteijn

Bastian Ravesteijn is an assistant professor of Applied Economics at Erasmus School of Economics. Bastian’s research addresses socioeconomic disparities in health, and how public policy can influence those disparities. Bastian’s NWO Veni project is called “Improving access to mental health care” and focuses on individuals with mental illness who do not receive enough treatment, while others receive too much. The project uses the 2012 introduction of a copay in the Netherlands as a natural experiment to investigate the extent to which out-of-pocket payments can ensure optimal access to mental health care.