Research

Published articles

• DemoGravity: World population and trade in the 21st century – with Steven Brakman and Charles van Marrewijk
  Review of International Economics, May 2025, Vol. 33(2), p. 486-501. 📚 article (open access) 💰grant 🗞️ blog ❗press coverage
  
  

• WWII bombing and the German city system: Back to the synthetic mean? – with  Duc A. Nguyen, Steven Brakman, and Harry Garretsen
  Global Challenges and Regional Science, March 2025, Vol. 1., 100004. 📚 article (open access)
  
  

• Demography and income in the 21st Century: A long-run perspective – with Steven Brakman and Charles van Marrewijk
  Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, March 2025, Vol.  18(1), p. 25-40. 📚 article (open access) 💰grant  🗞️ blog ❗press coverage
  
  

• Going Dutch? Firm exports and FDI in the wake of the 2014 EU-Russia sanctions – with Marcel van den Berg and Loe Franssen
  Review of International Economics, February 2024, Vol. 32(1), p. 190-22. 📚 article (open access) 📎 data  & code 💰grant 🗞️ blog (in Dutch) 🏅top 10 journal citation
  
  

• EXITitis in the UK: Gravity estimates in the aftermath of Brexit – with Steven Brakman and Harry Garretsen
  De Economist, June 2023, Vol. 171, p. 185-206. 📚 article (open access) 💰grant ❗press coverage  
  
  

• Phase out tariffs, phase in trade? – with Tibor Besedeš and James Lake
  Journal of International Economics, November 2020, Vol. 127, 103385. 📎 data & code
  
  

• The Belt and Road Initiative's effect on supply-chain trade: evidence from structural gravity equations
  Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, March 2019, Vol. 12(1), p. 77-104. 📚 article (open access)
  
  

• Supply-chain trade and labor market outcomes: The case of the 2004 European Union enlargement – with Lennart Kaplan and Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso
  Review of International Economics, May 2018, Vol. 26(2), p. 481-506. 🗞️ Telos-EU blog
  
  

• Consequences of Brexit and options for a 'Global Britain' – with Steven Brakman and Harry Garretsen
  Papers in Regional Science, March 2018, Vol. 97(1), p. 55-72. 📚 article (open access) 📽️ vlog 🗞️ VoxEU blog
  
  

• Do trade agreements stimulate international trade differently? Evidence from 296 trade agreements – with Steven Brakman and Harry Garretsen
  The World Economy, January 2016, Vol. 39(1), p. 97-131. 📎 data
  
  

• Heterogeneous trade agreements, WTO membership and international trade: an analysis using matching econometrics – with Sofia Trojanowska
  Applied Economics, February 2015, Vol. 47(33), p. 3499-3509.
  
  

• The development of trade blocs in an era of globalisation – with Aleid Brouwer
  Environment & Planning A: Economy and Space, July 2014, Vol. 46(7), p. 1535-1553.
  
  

• Do we really know that trade agreements increase trade?
  Review of World Economics, March 2014, Vol. 150, p. 443-469. 📽️ animation

(Selected) work in progress

• What's in a place name? Initial geography and historical urban development  – with  Duc A. Nguyen, Steven Brakman, and Harry Garretsen
  R&R (2), Journal of Economic Geography. 📚 CESifo Working Paper 104235
  
  

• Trading in the shadows: Dutch firms and EU-Russia sanctions busting – with Marcel van den Berg, Loe Franssen, and Stef Weijers
  📚 in progress  🗞️ press release ❗major national news coverage incl. NOS Radio 1 Journaal, NOS, NRC Handelsblad, De Volkskrant, Trouw, BNR Nieuwsradio, nu.nl
  
  

• The bigger they are, the harder they fall? Winning coalition size and sanctions success – with Matthijs Leusen, Harry Garretsen, and Francesco Giumelli
  📚 Paper available upon request.
  
  

• The stock market effects of the 2022 Russia sanctions: Evidence from the US and the EU – with Matthijs Leusen, Harry Garretsen, and Francesco Giumelli
  📚 Paper coming soon.
  
  

• Lobbying on phase-outs in US free trade agreements – with  James Lake
  🚧 under construction 💰grant

Books

• Handel als wapen: een geopolitiek spel
  ('Trade as a weapon: a geopolitical game')
  joint work with Steven Brakman and Charles van Marrewijk

⭐ My first popular-science book, published February 2026.

📚 Available as paperback and e-book via amazon.nl, bol.com, and bookstores.

🎤 Featured in Boekestijn en De Wijk (Top-5 podcast in  the Netherlands) and BNR Big 5.

🗞️ Covered in Het Financieele Dagblad (interview), Het Financieele Dagblad (book review), Noordhollands Dagblad, NEMO Kennislink (interview), and Controllers Magazine (book review). 

💡 Public engagement session at De Nederlandsche Bank.

📈 Book illustrations available in color [pdf].

👍 Dit boek, net 170 pagina’s, is verplichte kost voor de krantenlezer die naar adem hapt bij weer een ronde importheffingen. Het Financieele Dagblad

👍 Lekker leesbaar... Aanrader voor begrip van macro-economische trends. - Controllers Magazine.

👍 Handzaam werk over de verwevenheid van handel en geopolitiek. Met veel grafieken en goed leesbare analyses van sancties en verdragen, geschreven door drie wetenschappers. - EW Magazine.