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Welcome to the personal website of Frank van Oort. I am Professor of Urban and Regional Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My research interests include:

  • Agglomeration Economies
  • Urban and Regional Economics
  • Economic Geography
  • Geography of Innovation
  • Knowledge Economy
  • Urban Networks and Polycentricity
  • Urban Geography
  • Spatial Planning

Please feel free to explore this website and to contact me if you have questions or concerns.

Recent Posts

More Ways to Rome: The Agglomeration and Firm Productivity Relationship through a Configurational Lens

Daniel Speldekamp, Joris Knoben & Frank van Oort (2025), “More ways to Rome: The agglomeration and firm productivity relationship through a configurational lens”. Chapter 15 in: Martin Anderson, Charlie Karlsson & Sofia Wixe (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Spatial Diversity and Business Economics, pp. 372-393. [download] A recent stream of studies demonstrates that agglomeration heterogeneously … Continue reading More Ways to Rome: The Agglomeration and Firm Productivity Relationship through a Configurational Lens

Do workers or firms drive the foreign acquisition wage gap?

Marcus Rösch, Michiel Gerritse, Bas Karreman, Frank van Oort & Bart Loog (2025), “Do firms or workers drive the foreign acquisition wage premium?” European Economic Review 178, 105105. [open access] Foreign-acquired firms pay higher wages. The wage gap may arise with worker composition (e.g., sorting of high-quality workers) or firm-level premia (e.g., productivity improvements). We propose a … Continue reading Do workers or firms drive the foreign acquisition wage gap?

The potential benefits of regionally differentiated Covid-19 policies

Open access. Mark Thissen, Frank van Oort & Anet Weterings. While many countries introduced regionally differentiated policy measures for Covid-19, such as social distancing, lockdowns and working from home, the Netherlands opted for national binding policies already in the early stages of the pandemic. Using detailed data on the impacts of the first lockdown on … Continue reading The potential benefits of regionally differentiated Covid-19 policies

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