High resolution photo (made by Bob Bronshof)
Bas Jacobs is professor of economics and public finance at Erasmus University Rotterdam since 2007. His research crosses the borders of public finance, optimal taxation, welfare economics, macroeconomics, human capital theory and labor economics. He is a research fellow of the Tinbergen Institute, Netspar and CESifo. He is also academic partner of the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. Bas Jacobs is currently panel member of Economic Policy, associate editor for FinanzArchiv, member of the board of MeJudice, and member of the Business News Radio panel of economists.
Jacobs is also member of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Arnold Heertje Library. During 2006-2009 Jacobs wrote a biweekly column on economics in De Groene Amsterdammer. As of September 2010 Jacobs is advisor of the editorial board of the Dutch political TV-program Buitenhof.
From 1997 to 2004 Jacobs worked at the CPB Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. He has been visiting fellow of the University of Chicago (2003) and the University of Munich (2008). In 2004-2005 Jacobs was a Jean-Monet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He held a post-doc position at the University of Amsterdam during 2002-2005. From 2005-2007 Jacobs was assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Tilburg.
Jacobs is born on September 5, 1973 in Bolsward, the Netherlands. He got his pre-university degree in 1991. In 1997 he received his MA in economics at the University of Amsterdam and his Ph.D. on May 14 2002 at the University of Amsterdam with the thesis Public Finance and Human Capital. His supervisors were Lans Bovenberg (Universiteit van Tilburg) and Casper van Ewijk (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis).
Jacobs has published on optimal taxation and redistribution, the marginal cost of public funds, optimal capital income taxation, human capital and optimal education policy, labor markets and wage inequality, fiscal policy and ageing, economic growth, and technical change. He collaborated with (amongst others) Lans Bovenberg, Casper van Ewijk, Joop Hartog, James Heckman, Ruud de Mooij, Richard Nahuis, Rick van der Ploeg, Dirk Schindler, Paul Tang, Jules Theeuwes, Dinand Webbink, and Sweder van Wijnbergen.