Department of Macro, International and Labour Economics (MILE)
MILE – Policy-Relevant Economics
At MILE, we explore the economic issues that matter for policy today. Our research spans labour markets and education, international trade, macroeconomics, and more, from inequality dynamics, technology and economic growth, resilience and climate change, to expectations, in Emerging Markets and in Europe, reflecting the diversity of expertise in our department.
What connects us is a common goal: to understand and improve the design of economic policies that shape people’s lives, from the local to the global level.
Policy-relevant economics also guides our teaching, ensuring that our courses equip students to analyse and engage with real-world policy challenges.”
About us
Fields: Macroeconomics, Labour Economics, International Economics, Education Economics
Department head: Bart Golsteyn
Secretaries: Silvana de Sanctis, Marion Muitjens
Management: Mike Simon
Contact
Secretarial office MILE:
Room A0.03
Phone: +31 43 38-83620
Mailing address:
Department of Economics
P.O.Box 616
6200 MD Maastricht
The Netherlands
In the spotlight
Winners of the Sustainable UM Research Seed Fund 2025–2026
Michalis Moatsos will lead the Fork to Future project, also including Diogo Sampaio Lima and Trudie Schils. This is a collaboration between Maastricht University and local food service partners to apply the EAT-Lancet planetary healthy diet framework on campus and in the surrounding region. The project creates a living laboratory where researchers, students, staff, and local stakeholders work together to reshape how food is served and consumed.
Work by Mark Sanders, Sasha Serebriakova was cited in the Financial Times!
Find more about their study here.
Meeting with schools for the OnderwijsMonitor Limburg
Trudie Schils and her team organised on March 18th a meeting with school leaders in the region, who are part of the knowledge network OnderwijsMonitor Limburg on designing and implementing programs or interventions in schools. For an effective approach to tackle certain issues insight from research and practice should be merged. They pointed to the importance of not only using research for the content of a program, but also for the implementation. The WHAT and HOW both need attention for a program to be successful.
Workshop organised by Karsten Mau as part of NWO grant
On 15-16 January Karsten Mau and Feicheng Wang co-organized a workshop on Geopolitical Tensions and Global Capital Flows in Groningen, with support from the NWO.
Over two intensive days, workshop participants presented works on FDI under geopolitical risk, sanctions and global finance, investor responses to geopolitical shocks, trade under conflict, and the growing role of investment screening mechanisms.
A highlight was the keynote by Beata Javorcik.
See the workshop programme here.
Julian Ashwin wins Veni grant
See below the research which Julian will undertake in the next three years:
Title: The macroeconomics of healthy longevity in ageing societies
People are living longer and societies are ageing. This has led to economic pessimism, based on the assumption that we can’t change how we age. Using individual health and economic microdata, this project identifies the changing relationships between age, health and economic outcomes.
The NWO Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) is worth up to €320,000. It is an incentive for adventurous, talented and pioneering researchers to further develop their own research ideas over the next three years.
Karsten Mau awarded an Open Competition XS grant
Measuring Cross-Border Supply Chains and the External Economic Dependence of the Netherlands
Recent global disruptions have underscored the vulnerabilities of fragmented international supply chains. Dr. Mau’s project addresses a critical knowledge gap: what specific goods are traded across borders, and for what purposes? The findings will provide valuable insights into the Netherlands' economic dependencies and inform strategies to manage external risk exposure while maintaining the benefits of global trade integration.
The NWO SGW Open Competition XS grants, valued at €50,000, support early-stage, high-potential social sciences and humanities projects.
