Postdoc scholarship Economic Analysis of Inequalities and their Impacts

Job description

The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), a leading European institute on labour and inequality research, is a multi-disciplinary research institute at the University of Amsterdam. It performs high-level applied research in an international research environment, with excellent support services, and maintains a significant portfolio of externally funded research projects.

AIAS is the coordinator of the major, interdisciplinary research project Growing INequalities’ Impacts (GINI), which is funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme (February 2010–January 2013). The aim of this project is to analyse changing inequalities, their implications and policy options in an internationally comparative way and a longer-term perspective. It brings together a large team of eminent researchers from 25 EU-countries, the USA, Japan, Canada and Australia (please see www.gini-research.org for details) who are contributing discussion papers and country reports.
To reinforce the team working at AIAS for GINI research and management we offer a 1.5 to 2-year postdoctoral position that will contribute to:

1. performing theoretical and empirical analysis of the level, causes and consequences of inequality in income, wealth and education,
2. collecting statistical data and perform empirical analysis of individual and country-level data
3. integrating the findings of 1) and 2) with the results of analyses of social, cultural and political impacts, and
4. drawing policy implications from 1) to 3).
5. publishing results in academic journals, presenting them to academic audiences, and assisting in writing reports on the scientific output for the European Commission.

The enthusiastic new postdoc will work in a mutual division of labour with the other members of the GINI team at AIAS. We hope the person will take an active interest in researching the mechanisms affecting the distributions of incomes and of earnings in a perspective that such mechanisms may differ for top incomes, the middle and the bottom of the distribution. In particular, the role of taxation in explaining the evolution of top income shares deserves attention. We encourage the post-doc’s own creative research ideas within the scope of the project.

Requirements

We invite applications from researchers with:

• a completed PhD (or a defence date fixed) in macro economics, (applied) macro econometrics, (applied) micro econometrics, international economics or labour economics, who can bring his or her expertise to bear on the subject of inequalities and their impacts;
• confirmed skills and experience in statistical analysis and econometrics.

Good knowledge of labour-market or inequality issues will be appreciated, as will be own ideas and initiatives for developing the research. Ability in written and verbal communication with academic audiences and proficiency in English are compulsory, some knowledge of Dutch is appreciated.

End procedure

20 April 2011

Conditions of employment

The job is located in Amsterdam. The successful candidate is expected to begin his/her assignment as soon as possible in mutual agreement. The appointment will be for 1.5 to 2 years. Salary is competitive, depending on qualifications and work experience, starting from €3195 per month (full-time) plus 8% annual holiday allowance, 8.3% end-of-year allowance and 7.75% health care insurance contribution. Applicants coming from abroad may be eligible for a favourable tax treatment (‘30% ruling’).

Additional information

For more information please contact Dr Wiemer Salverda (w.salverda@uva.nl) at AIAS.
More information about employer University of Amsterdam (UvA) on AcademicTransfer.