Education of Urban Economics

Topics mainly focus on psychological or behavioral economic approaches to (improving) various types of health behavior, but applications to other domains or types of behavior are also possible.

• Time orientation (e.g., time perspective, consideration of immediate and future consequences), intertemporal choice (now vs. later), dynamic inconsistency, preference reversals, empathy gaps, vices and virtues
• Trade-offs between, for example, hedonic and utilitarian aspects, time and money, or health and sustainability
• Psychological distance (close vs. distant) and/or construal level (abstract vs. concrete), delay of gratification, self-regulation and/or self-control, regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention), procrastination
• Lay beliefs or inferences/associations (e.g., “unhealthy = tasty”, “healthy = expensive”) about/with health behavior
• Nudging, defaults, social norms, framing, choice overload, maximizing vs. satisficing, compensation, licensing, justification, spillover and other psychological or behavioral economic phenomena
• The role of personality traits (i.e., Big Five) in health behavior
• Relations between music use (e.g., listening, choir singing) and physical, mental and/or social health
• Loneliness, social isolation, social connection, social pain

Methods include systematic literature reviews, surveys and (online) experiments.

I supervise thesis projects on sustainability transitions, with a focus on energy systems, resilience, and social equity. Projects may adopt economic, spatial, and/or interdisciplinary perspectives. Methods may include (spatial) econometrics, surveys, interviews, workshops, network analysis, and mixed methods.

Energy communities and collective action

Topics include energy communities, grid capacity challenges, energy poverty, scaling, business models and value sharing.

Example questions:

• What economically viable solutions can energy communities provide to address grid challenges, and under what conditions?
• What financial and institutional conditions enable scaling?
• What economic and social values do energy communities create, and how can this be enhanced?

Adaptive and resilient energy transitions

Topics include adaptive energy systems, flexibility, grid vulnerability, renewable energy adoption, energy efficiency, and green infrastructure.

Example questions:

• What economic incentives encourage demand-side flexibility, and what are the costs and benefits for different actors?
• How do spatial and socioeconomic differences shape participation in energy transitions?
• How can greening strategies reduce heat vulnerability and energy costs, and who benefits from these interventions?

Regional labor markets

Topics include labor market impacts of energy transitions and the changing geography of work due to AI.

Example questions:

• How are energy transitions reshaping regional labor markets?
• How is AI changing employment opportunities across regions?

• Resident vulnerability and participation in Wageningen’s energy and housing transition
• Health and wellbeing in Wageningen’s energy and housing transition
• A question of systems: Leverage points for accelerating just climate transitions in Dutch urban neighbourhoods
• Need fulfilment at the neighbourhood level: A subjective experience
• Who has time to be green: Temporal dimensions of sustainable or sufficiency behaviour
• Accessibility for all? Measuring the 15-minute city

• Healthy cities: are cities or its citizens less healthy?
• Green cities: importance of green for quality of live, tourism, happiness
• Inclusive cities: inequality, social networks and local engagement
• Prosumers: consumers as producers of e.g. energy
• Urban-rural interactions: how cities benefit from their hinterland and vice-versa
• Spatial determinants of voting behaviour
• Agent based modelling (ABM), choice experiments, (spatial) multi-criteria analysis.

Sustainable and Circular Food Systems

• Sustainable diets, food waste reduction, urban food systems, circular and inclusive food behaviours (e.g., growing, sharing, disposal)

Circular Economy

• Drivers and barriers of circular behaviours (e.g., food, fashion, furniture, electronics); environmental, social and economic impacts

Sustainability Transitions

• From sustainable behaviours to system-wide impacts on environmental, economic and social systems; across urban, regional and global scales

Innovation for Sustainable Development

• Environmental and regional innovation, economic and environmental impacts

Methods

• Interviews, surveys, quantitative analysis, economic-environmental modelling
  

• Food systems: What are the social, economic and environmental impacts of urban food systems?
• Sustainable consumption: Cities are consumption hotspots – how can they contribute to sustainable development from a consumption perspective?
• Environmental inequality: Are vulnerable social groups more affected by environmental pollution?
• Bioeconomy: Identification of urban-rural cooperations to increase renewable resource use and/or reduce GHG emissions
• Urban commoning: What are alternative urban provisioning systems and how are they governed?

• Psychology of pro-environmental behavior
• Sustainable consumer behaviour, lifestyle change and sufficiency
• Support for and resistance against climate policy
• Public opinion on climate change and climate denial
• Climate adaptation by individuals, households, governments, and farmers
• Social norms and diffusion of (sustainable) innovations and behaviours (social tipping points) in the energy and protein transition
• Collective climate action (e.g., community-based initiatives, climate protests)
• Everyday environmental activism (conversations about climate change)
• Climate anxiety and other climate-related mental health impacts
• Contextual and infrastructural influences on behaviour
• Behavioral economics and nudging of sustainable behaviour

• Happy and healthy cities: Health inequalities in the city
• Objective indicators and subjective perceptions of healthy living environments
• Sensory experiences of cities and their behavioral and health impact (e.g., smellscaping, soundscaping)
• Spatial determinants of urban health behaviors (e.g., food, exercise, sleep, alcohol)
• Behavioral aspects of OneHealth in the city: Water, soil, animal, plant and human health interaction (e.g., water quality, air quality)
• Behavioral interventions to reduce heat stress in urban areas
• Green cities: Behavioral responses to green areas and potential health impacts (e.g., plagues, litter, exercise, social gatherings)
• Urban spatial planning and building for healthy lifestyles (e.g., food environment in new neighborhoods, high rise building and exercise or food preparation practices)
• Behavioral economics for infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance
• Behavioral responses to environmental health concerns (e.g., PFAS, microplastics, steel slugs, pesticides)
• Personal relative deprivation and healthy and sustainable behaviors
• Nudging and choice architecture interventions for healthy, safe and sustainable behavior