Research of Urban Economics
Because of the high residential density, cities are great places to foster change. Change in terms of sustainable consumption, healthy life-styles and societal participation. Important topics are (food) waste, energy and water use, food use, (non-point) pollution and climate change impacts in urban areas.
Research of the Urban Economics group concentrates on the economic behaviour, institutions, and the incentives that can contribute to more sustainable urban consumption and healthy lifestyles, focusing on the role and participation of consumers and households, municipal authorities and institutions, firms and NGO’s and the interactions between them. By applying a behavioural economics approach, behaviour regarding judgment, choice and social decision-making is studied, taking into account subjective factors, context and (expected) consequences of behaviour.
Next, the Urban Economics group focuses on the impacts of urbanisation on actors and activities in the urban-rural interface. Important issues in this respect are the economic analysis of the changed relation between food production and consumption, as well as the management and design of green/blue areas in cities and rural areas around cities.
The research of UEC focusses on the economics of spatial planning for urbanisation and the development of optimal interaction between cities and rural areas, for example in the context of regional food supply systems, climate change mitigation, nature conservation and recreation activities.
Our mission and vision
Mission: To get the best out of cities
Cities can be best described as complex (adaptive) systems with a high concentration of people in a human-made environment of physical and social structures. This environment steers and impacts the behaviour of the citizens, but vice-versa, the behaviour of the citizens also impacts the (urban) environment. Not only locally, but also the physical and social environment at the regional, national, and even global scale.
Vision: Just and sustainable societies
More than half of the world population is living in urban areas. And this number is still growing, in particular in the Global South. More than ever, urbanites dominate our societies and as such the Anthropocene impacts on our global ecosystem. Furthermore, with urbanization, generally, also come increasing economical, social and environmental inequalities, both inside the city and between cities and countryside[1].
To reach a just and sustainable society, cities can be used as leverage points of change, innovation and adaptation when focusing both on the wellbeing of their own population, as well as those elsewhere and those to come. Their high density and social cohesion, the (often) compact lay-out and relatively homogenous socio-spatial environment (compared to the national level) potentially allow strategic and visionary local governments to make a difference and become global leaders.
[1] With on the one hand citizens that consume the vast amount of resources the earth provides, generally living in countries that can invest in climate change adaptation. And on the other hand citizens that work in industrial activities and live in cumbersome conditions in places that already face the impact of climate change, with limited or without any means to adapt
Strategy: Combining spatial and behavioural economics
To get the best out of cities, at UEC, we study the link between place, behaviour and environment, both inside the city and between urban and rural areas. How does the physical and social environment allow or constrain people to be more energy efficient, to insulate their homes, use electric (shared) vehicles, invest in solar panels, and how does this affect inequality in terms of energy poverty? How do individual and collective food strategies impact health, resilience and food security at different spatial scales across the world? We focus on three themes: the energy transition, circular food systems and health & wellbeing.
We are an interdisciplinary group: we use insights from urban, regional, and behavioural economics to improve the understanding of consumer and household decision-making concerning sustainability, health & well-being and the systemic impacts at the individual, urban and regional level. In addition, we aim to contribute to new economic thinking and bring in concepts and approaches from heterodox economic streams like ecological, wellbeing and feminist economics.
Furthermore, we link micro- to macro insights by using a wide range of methodologies from (behavioural) experiments, to surveys, spatial econometrics, simulations and agent-based models.