Sijbren Cnossen Chair established at Erasmus School of Economics

Bas Jacobs responds with enthusiasm: “I am excited that the Sijbren Cnossen Chair has been established at Erasmus School of Economics and I am humbled to be asked to hold it. I greatly admire Sijbren Cnossen for his outstanding academic contributions in the economics of taxation. Moreover, I know Cnossen as a great human being and dear friend. It is therefore with great pride that I have accepted the chair. The chair will be devoted to academic and applied research in public finance. Moreover, the chair aims to disseminate insights from public economics research to society at large.”

Sijbren Cnossen (82), Emeritus Professor of Tax Law at Erasmus School of Economics and Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Maastricht, is honored with the establishment of the Chair which bears his name: “I’m deeply moved by the generous gesture and wish to thank Erasmus School of Economics wholeheartedly for bestowing this exceptional honor on me. Also, I can’t think of a better qualified person to hold the chair than Bas, who combines brilliant insights in the economics of taxation with enormous energy and a burning passion to contribute to a better society. I know for sure that he will realise the great expectations that we all have of the chair’s holder.”

Sijbren Cnossen is still active as Academic Partner of CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis and as Professor of Economics at the University of Pretoria. In the past he has held appointments at the Law Schools of Harvard University, New York University and the University of Florida, the College of Europe at Bruges, and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS). He is the (co-)author of several books and numerous articles on the design and economics of taxation. Professor Cnossen is past editor of International Tax and Public Finance and De Economist. As a consultant to the IMF, World Bank, South African Treasury, OECD, EU Commission, USAID and HIID, he has advised more than 30 countries on the design and reform of their tax systems, most recently Zambia and Aruba. His latest book, Reforming VATs in Africa is with the printer.

Bas Jacobs is Professor of Public Economics at Erasmus School of Economics. He is an internationally renowned specialist in public finance. Several of his papers have appeared in leading journals in public economics. In his academic research Jacobs has explored progressive income taxes, taxes on capital income and corrective taxes. He has also studied optimal education financing schemes and taxation of human capital. He did research on the marginal cost of public funds. In recent research, he studies the political economy of income taxation, indirect redistribution mechanisms, such as minimum wages and labor unions, the distributional consequences of technological change, and optimal macro-economic stabilization policy. Jacobs has been a visiting fellow of, among others, the universities of Chicago, Munich and California at Berkeley, and of the International Monetary Fund. He has also been a consultant to the World Bank. Jacobs is the Wim Duisenberg fellow at NIAS in 2018-2019. Bas Jacobs has lucid writing skills and is influential in the Dutch policy debate. He has written dozens of applied policy articles in national journals, a book in Dutch on optimal income redistribution (De Prijs van Gelijkheid, 2015), and hundreds of opinion articles and blogs. His ability to clearly explain complex economic issues gives Jacobs an important presence in newspapers and on radio and television.