PhD position at the Department of Macro, International and Labour Economics, Maastricht University

The Department of Macro, International and Labour Economics (MILE) at the School of Business and Economics (SBE) of Maastricht University, offers a 4-year PhD position, starting September 2023.

We are looking for a highly motivated candidate who has proven interest and wants to work on a research project about international supply chain linkages and economic interdependencies that reveal vulnerabilities at the firm, sector and country level, and also study their policy implications.

The aim of the project is to better understand and map out international supply chain linkages. We then wish to use that information to evaluate the economic vulnerability and resilience of firms, sectors and countries, and their path to sustainability. The research project is guided by several (primarily empirical) questions, such as (i) How can input-output relationships be measured at a disaggregated level? (ii) How can goods/industries be ranked in terms of their economic centrality, and what does this imply for their resilience? (iii) What does the economic centrality imply for international economic relations and policymaking and how is that revealed in the data?

The selected candidate will work with various types of data sets, including input-output tables or firm-level trade data, and develop methods to generate new measures of supply-and-use relationships and economic centrality. For this, we seek candidates with a strong interest in one or several of the questions and (preferably) some experience with econometrics and network analysis methods.

Eligible candidates must have:

- Successfully completed a – preferably 2-year (120 ECTS) – Master’s degree (MSc or MPhil) in (Quantitative) Economics, Econometrics, Computational social science or a related area (before September 2023) 

- Have an excellent command of English.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website www.maastrichtuniversity.nl > About UM > Working at UM.

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 22,000 students and about 5,000 employees. Reflecting the university's strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience. For more information, visit www.maastrichtuniversity.nl.nl.

https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/research/department-macro-international-and-labour-economics-mile