PhD position in the field of Navigating Macroeconomic Expectations

Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has enjoyed an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative centre of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Belonging to the best research universities of Europe and joining forces with prestigious partner universities and networks, the University of Groningen is truly an international place of knowledge.

Faculty of Economics and Business
The Faculty of Economics and Business offers an inspiring study and working environment for students and employees. International accreditation enables the Faculty to assess performance against the highest international standards. It also creates an exciting environment of continuous improvement. FEB's programmes, academic staff and research do well on various excellence ranking lists.

FEBRI, the graduate school and research institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business has one PhD position in the field of Navigating Macroeconomic Expectations: Informational Frictions, Behavioral Biases, and Policy Implications available.

Project description
Expectations play a fundamental role in macroeconomic dynamics, influencing consumption, investment, wage-setting, and the transmission of policy. While traditional models provide a strong foundation, growing evidence suggests that real-world expectation formation is shaped by informational frictions, cognitive biases, and heterogeneity in beliefs.

This PhD project seeks to combine empirical insights with modern macroeconomic modelling to examine the broader implications of deviations from standard rational expectations on the macroeconomy. How do public expectations react to monetary or fiscal policy changes or announcements? What are the implications of these expectations for policy credibility or effectiveness? What mechanisms drive deviations from rational expectation formation, and how do these impact financial markets and the effectiveness of central bank communication?

During this 4-year PhD program, you will join a collaborative research team applying cutting-edge methods from Experimental/Behavioral Economics alongside modern macroeconomic modelling techniques (e.g. DSGE). You'll have the opportunity to design and conduct lab or survey experiments that reveal how people process economic information and form beliefs about future macroeconomics indicators. You'll have access to state-of-the-art research facilities at FEB and RUG, including the GrEELab (https://www.greelab.nl/) experimental economics laboratory.

The project offers flexibility in both scope and methodology to explore various aspects of behavioural macroeconomics - whether that's monetary policy perception and communication, heterogeneous expectations in financial markets, or the role of sentiment in economic fluctuations, and others.

Join us in advancing our understanding of how economic expectations form and evolve, thus contributing to a rapidly evolving research field with important implications for both academic theory and real-world policy design.

The PhD position is embedded in the Economics, Econometrics, and Finance research programme of FEB’s Research Institute. The project will be supervised by Dr Viktor Marinkov, Dr Yan Xu, and Dr Christiaan van der Kwaak.

Candidates should hold a MSc or Research Master in Economics. We particularly encourage applications from candidates with a strong background in (macro)economic theory, experimental and empirical methods.

The ideal candidate will have experience running experiments, along with strong programming, econometric, and writing skills. Familiarity with macroeconomic dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models or survey design is encouraged and greatly beneficial. We are looking for ambitious, highly motivated candidates who wish to make a career in research studying expectations formation and their implications for policy.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

- A temporary full-time appointment for a period of four years, under the condition of a positive assessment at the end of the first year. The gross monthly salary is € 2,901, which increases yearly to a maximum of € 3,707.
- Based on the gross salary an additional 8% holiday allowance each year in May, and an additional 8.3 % end of year bonus in December. PhD candidates contribute 20% of their time to teaching in years 2-4.

Starting date: Preferably per 1 September 2025

For more general information, please send an email to
febphdvacancies@rug.nl

Dr Viktor Marinkov (for more information on this specific project)
viktor.marinkov@rug.nl

Dr Yan Xu (for more information on this specific project)
yan.xu@rug.nl

Dr Viktor Marinkov
Dr Yan Xu
Dr Christiaan van der Kwaak