B.A. Vollaard
Assistant Professorb.a.vollaard@uvt.nl
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Department of Economics
Expertise
Ben Vollaard (Ph.D. RAND Graduate School) conducts research in the area of economics of crime. He is affiliated to the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC), member of the Home Office/ERA Academic advisory panel, writes regularly for the national newspaper NRC Handelsblad, and is one of the managing editors of Mejudice.nl, the Dutch discussion forum for economists.
His research focuses on cost-effective strategies to reduce common crime. The aim of his research is to integrate studies of victim and offender behavior into a common economic framework for policy analysis.
In his work, he exploits random variation in the application of policy measures as a way to establish the causal impact of crime policy. In these so-called natural experiments, history is the source of quasi-experimental variation. As Niall Ferguson puts it in his book 'Virtual History' (1999): "If we want to say anything about causation in the past without invoking covering laws, we really have to use counterfactuals, if only to test our causal hypotheses."
Key words
Publications
Principal publicationsClick here for the extended list of publications 
Education
2000-2005 Ph.D. in Policy Analysis, RAND Graduate School. Thesis title: Police effectiveness: measurement and incentives. Dissertation committee: Jim Hosek, Arie Kapteyn, Gregory Ridgeway. External reader: James Q. Wilson. (M.Phil. September 2002)
1993-1997 B.Sc. & M.Sc. Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. GPA 4.0.
Career
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2008- University of Tilburg, Assistant professor at the Economics Department. Research into economics of crime jointly financed by the Police Academy and TILEC.
2008 RAND Europe, Cambridge (UK). Analyst. Involved in research into economics of end-of-life care and maths teaching reforms.
2006-2007 NRC Handelsblad (Dutch quality newspaper). Economics reporter. Covering housing policy and labour market. Freelance journalist as of December 2007.
2002-2006 CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, Researcher (project leader). Initiating and managing research projects on policing, electricity production, and efficiency of health care.
2000-2005 RAND Corporation, Santa Monica (USA). Involved in research on policing, oil and gas exploration, electricity consumption, demand for health care and Internet as fellow at the RAND Graduate School.
1999-2000 CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, Researcher. Involved in privatization of public employment service and developing guidelines for public-private partnerships.
1997-1999 Netherlands Department of Economic Affairs, Member of Staff to the Secretary. Involved in evaluating government procurement practices, and in OECD Economic Surveys (Japan and Mexico).
VISITING POSITIONS
2010 Rutgers University / UC Berkeley, Visiting scholar at the School of Criminal Justice / Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.
2005 Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Israel). Visiting researcher at Institute of Criminology. Involved in research into the economics of the criminal justice system.
1997 Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, Newcastle upon Tyne (UK), Visiting researcher. Engaged in EU research program on the offshore oil and gas supply industry.
Publications
Principal publicationsClick here for the extended list of publications
Projects
Does regulation of built-in security reduce crime? Evidence from a natural experiment (with Jan van Ours, revise and resubmit Economic Journal) (featured in 'Economics focus' of the Economist)
Why the police have an effect on violent crime after all. Evidence from the British Crime Survey (with Joe Hamed, revise and resubmit Journal of Law and Economics). Related paper: The effect of police on crime, disorder and victim precaution. Evidence from a Dutch victimization survey, International Review of Law and Economics, 2009, 29 (4). (with Pierre Koning)
Selective incapacitation of prolific offenders: lessons from a natural experiment. (evaluation of the Dutch 'three strikes' law, to be presented in Oct at Bonn/Paris LE workshop)
The engine immobilizer: a non-starter for car thieves (work in progress, with Jan van Ours and Stefan Toonen, paper expected in August 2010). Related work on car color and car theft was recently published on Vox, and featured on NPR, Toronto Star.
How chips distort the market for stolen bicycles (work in progress, with Meltem Daysal).
Why applying the 'broken windows theory' in street cleaning might be a bad idea: evidence from a field experiment (work in progress, with Robert Dur).
Download the first ever 1980 through 2008 consistent time series for victimization of crime in the Netherlands (together with Jan van den Brakel).
Evaluating the effect of proactive policing in the Netherlands. Evidence from a victimization survey, paper presented at the Economics of Crime Workshop of the University of Maryland, June 2006.
Promising explanations for the crime drop in the Netherlands (in Dutch) (with Jan van den Brakel and Peter Versteegh), februari 2009.
The limited influence of judges on the use of custodial sentences (in Dutch), NJB, May 15, 2009(with Debora Moolenaar). (see also Lege bajes, NRC Handelsblad, 5 juli 2008).
Cleaning up after your dog: the unexpected behavioral effect of levying the dog tax (with Pierre Koning).
Direct and indirect funding
Research grant from the Police Research Foundation, 2008, 2009, 2010.
External accreditation
Humane Studies Fellow, 2002, 2003.
Dr. Hendrik Muller Vaderlandsch Fonds, Research grant, 1997.
Teaching
Undergraduate: Welfare economics, International BSc Program Economics, Jan-Jun 2010/Jan-Jun 2011, University of Tilburg (with Johannes Binswanger).
Risk governance, BSc Crime Science, University of Twente, December 2009, (with Jan van Dijk)
Ph.D.: Law and Economics course (M.Phil.): empirics of the economics of crime, Nov 2008 / 2009, University of Tilburg. (slides)
Room K 331
PO Box 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
| Phone | +31 13 466 8981 |
| Secretary | +31 13 466 2416 |
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Department of Economics
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