Hessel Oosterbeek (born in Gouda, Netherlands, on March 11, 1959) is a Dutch economist. He currently works as Professor of Economics at the University of Amsterdam. In particular, Oosterbeek has conducted extensive research on the returns to schooling, the economics of training, investment contracts, and overeducation and has performed impact evaluations for various interventions in especially education. Oosterbeek ranks among the most-cited Dutch economists and the world's leading education economists.
Biography
A native of Gouda, Hessel Oosterbeek began working as a bookseller after finishing high school, but began studying economics in 1980 at the University of Amsterdam (UVA). Therein, he earned a MSc and a PhD in, respectively, 1985 and 1992, the latter with a thesis on human capital theory. While studying at UVA, Oosterbeek worked at several research institutions in Amsterdam, including the Foundation for Economic Research (SEO), the Center for Educational Research, and the Institute for Public Expenditures, and became an assistant professor at UVA (1988–98). After his graduation and several visiting appointments at Cornell University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley, Oosterbeek was promoted to associate professor at UVA in 1998 and to full professor in 2000. Additionally, he maintains professional affiliations with CESifo, Tinbergen Institute, the Amsterdam Institute for International Development, the Max Goote Center for Vocational Education and Training, and the Latin American Social Sciences Institute (FLACSO). Moreover, he has been a member of the editorial boards of the Economics of Education Review and Effective Education.
Research
Hessel Oosterbeek's research interests include the economics of education, impact evaluation, experimental economics and development economics, which he has often explored in collaborations with notably Edwin Leuven, Randolph Sloof, Bas van der Klaauw and Joep Sonnemans. His research with Dinand Webbink in De Economist on higher education enrollment in the Netherlands won the 1997 Hennipman Award. According to IDEAS/RePEc, Oosterbeek belongs to the top 3% of economists registered on IDEAS as ranked by research output.
Research on the economics of education
Research on overeducation
One early but persistent area of Oosterbeek's research is over-education in the Netherlands. Together with Joop Hartog, he finds that due to more higher education enrollment, undereducation in the Netherlands decreased throughout the 1960s and 1970s while overeducation increased, though the rate of return to education is positive even in cases of "overeducation", implying that overeducation doesn't necessarily imply private or social inefficiency. By contrast, Oosterbeek and Hartog don't observe health, wealth or happiness among Dutch to increase linearly in education: individuals with only a non-vocational secondary school degree are generally healthier, wealthier and happier than TVET or university graduates; moreover, they find IQ to increase health, social background to increase wealth, and being a woman to increase happiness. Oosterbeek's research on overeducation (and mismatch) are reviewed in his and Leuven's synthesis of those economic literatures in the Handbook of the Economics of Education.