Alumna Kim van Berkel of Erasmus School of Economics has received 500 euros as one of the three nominees for the SER Thesis Prize 2024. Victory was handed to Eveline Nales (Wageningen University) during a public meeting of the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) on 20 June.
The SER actively contributes to the development of talent on social and economic topics. That talent is essential for the future of the Netherlands. In this light, the SER has set up a thesis prize that is awarded once every two years.
Kim van Berkel, who was nominated together with Eveline Nales and Karin van Swam-Toonen (an alumnus of Erasmus School of Law), obtained her master’s degree in policy economics (summa cum laude, 9.2/10) in September 2023. Currently, Kim works as a researcher in the Labour and Social Security group at SEO Amsterdam Economics. Her research focuses on the evaluation of policies that relate to social security and the labour market. In the past, she worked as a researcher at the Applied University of Amsterdam, where she was part of the research team of the Amsterdam Experiment with Welfare, a study into different types of guidance for welfare recipients in Amsterdam. Here, she was first introduced to the idea of earnings exemptions for social assistance recipients.
In her socially relevant master’s thesis, titled "Incentivising social assistance recipients: Quasi-experimental evidence from trials with earnings exemptions in the Netherlands" , she studies the effects of increased and longer-term earnings exemptions for social assistance recipients in Amsterdam and Rotterdam on the employment rate among social assistance recipients and the exit rate from social assistance.
In January 2024, Kim ended up first place with her master’s thesis. The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen) presented her the Jan Brouwer Thesis Prize 2024.
From left to right: Karin van Swam-Toonen (nominee/alumna Erasmus School of Law), Eveline Nales (winner), Kim Putters (SER chairman); Kim van Berkel (nominee/alumna Erasmus School of Economics) and Julia Schreurs (honorable mention)
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For more information, please contact Ronald de Groot, Media and Public Relations Officer at Erasmus School of Economics, rdegroot@ese.eur.nl, or +31 6 53 641 846.