first edition, November 2009

Transcription

Asset | Econometrics Magazine
Volume 18, first edition, November 2009
The mother of...
New Section!
Per Capita Prenucleolus
Tr iangel
Millennium Prize Problems
Special
Summer Contest
ekst
<On confidence in teamwork >
o u r s t o r ie s
p r eface
COLOPHON
Nekst is the quarterly magazine
of Asset | Econometrics © 2009
We consider teamwork as the cornerstone of our business
approach. Teamwork allows us to capture opportunities for
the group as a whole. And in doing so to move beyond our
individual boundaries. If you see yourself as an ambitious team
player we would like to hear from you.
For our Analyst Program, NIBC is looking for university
graduates who share our enthusiasm for teamwork. Personal
and professional development are the key-elements of
the Program: in-company training in co-operation with the
Amsterdam Institute of Finance; working side-by-side with
professionals at all levels and in every financial discipline
as part of learning on the job.
We employ top talent from diverse university backgrounds,
ranging from economics and business administration, to
law and technology. If you have just graduated with
aboveaverage grades and think you belong to that exceptional
class of top talent, apply today. Joining NIBC’s Analyst Program
might be the most important career decision you ever make!
Want to know more? Surf to www.careeratnibc.com.
Correspondence
Asset | Econometrics
Tilburg University
Room E 110
P.O.Box 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
Telephone: 013 466 27 47
[email protected]
www.Asset-Econometrics.nl
Editorial staff
Marleen Balvert
Tess Beukers
Frans Fonville
Harold van Heijst
Dennis Jaheruddin
Bart Kruize
Whitney Pattinaja
Fang Qi Wu
Contributions
Geert Alkema
Dennie van den Biggelaar
Twan Burg
Emile van Elen
Eefje Godding
Mirjam Groote Schaarsberg
Gerwald van Gulick
Bas Hamers
John Kleppe
Edyta Korpas
Kay Mennens
Freek Mulders
Robbert van Oosten
Inge Pulles
Anouk Rennen
Martin Salm
Renata Sotirov
Tycho Speekenbrink
Nienke Vugts
Lay-out & Frontpage
Bas Verheul
Let me tell you something about people who talk about their experiences
all the time. Whenever they tell their stories, I wonder how exciting their life
would be, since I usually conclude they have done almost anything you can
imagine. Would it not be great to take on new challenges every now and
then?
By now, you are probably expecting a story about my experiences as the new editor-inchief of Nekst. But that is exactly what I mean: I would like to avoid stories about myself.
Therefore, this preface will be mostly about you, since you are the one person I care for
the most. Besides the editorial board of course, because I owe them big time. Learn more
about these lovely volunteers in the introduction section. They spent a lot of time and
effort on this edition of Nekst in order to create an interesting magazine for you. And you
are, as you have probably guessed, the reader of this magazine. You are most likely an
econometrician, but you can also be a recruiter for a company, Pascal’s mother – get to
know her in this edition – or someone who just found this magazine in the train. You are
extremely important to any editor of Nekst. We write for you and most important: about
you! Do you realise that, without you, there would be no Nekst at all? We do not need our
own stories, as I mentioned before, we need to know your stories! You can already read
a lot of stories in this edition. Please, keep informing the editorial board of the activities
you attend, your greatest passion and your favourite teacher.
Nonetheless, how could I ever tell anything about my own experiences? I just started in
my function as editor-in-chief. Fortunately, I have the advantage of years of dedication
to Nekst of my predecessors, varying from great editors to even greater columnists.
Therefore, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the previous editorial board along
with the last editor-in-chief, Emile van Elen, and all the people who contributed to Nekst
in the past years. Hopefully, you are also willing to share your stories with someone of the
editorial board of Nekst in the future. Because with your help, I promise we will do our
utmost to make Nekst to an even greater success this year!
Original design
SintLucas@work
Interested? Please contact us: NIBC Human Resources, Frouke Röben, [email protected]. For further information see
www.careeratnibc.com. NIBC is a Dutch bank that offers integrated solutions to mid-market clients in the Benelux and
Germany. We believe ambition, teamwork, and professionalism are important assets in everything we do.
7+(+$*8(f/21'21f%5866(/6f)5$1.)857f1(:<25.f6,1*$325(f:::1,%&&20
Printing
Drukkerij Orangebook
Circulation
650
Frans Fonville
Editor-in-chief
Nekst 1 - November 2009
a b le o f C o ntent s
01
Preface
05
From the board
07
Nekst committee 2009-2010
08
The mother of Pascal Heuijerjans
10
MAK-camp & TIK-week
13
Welcome Week
14
Business Interview Flow Traders
17
Introduction Activity
18
Column Gerwald van Gulick
19
GMM and Drink
20
Triangel
24
Exchange Report
26
Living in Lodges
29
Hart van Brabantloop
32
Practical Report
34
The Teacher
37
Freshmen Activity
38
Special: Board to Board
40
Business Interview CBS
43
National Econometricians Football Tournament
44
Opinion Poll
45
Column Martin Salm
46
Asset International Conference
50
The Passion of Maartje de Ronde
52
Special: Millennium Prize Problems
55
Committee Profile: OID
56
Tilburg University Cantus
57
Puzzle
58
Graduates
59
Planning
60
Quatsch
Advertisements
Page
NIBC
cover
Ernst & Young
04
Watson Wyatt
06
All Options
12
Flow Traders
16
Rabobank
22
KPMG
28
PGGM
36
CBS
42
Ministerie van Financiën
48
SNS REAAL
cover
AEGON
cover
Excellent enough to
make a difference?
T he ch o c o late b o x
f r om the boa r d
Dear members, let us go back one year in time. What intentions did you have for your future at that time? Did
you expect you would be doing what you are doing right now in those days? For some of you, it could be the
case that things turned out exactly as foreseen. For others, things turned out completely different. I definitely
(Aankomende) actuarissen – M/V
Bij Ernst & Young werken accountants, belastingadviseurs en gespecialiseerde
adviseurs in vrijwel elke richting van de financiële, juridische en notariële
dienstverlening. Met ruim 4.600 medewerkers verspreid over 23 kantoren zijn
we een van de grootste adviesorganisaties in Nederland. Er is bij ons altijd
ruimte voor ambitieuze starters die het verschil willen maken.
Ga jij de financieel directeur van een verzekeraar adviseren over een nieuwe
premiestructuur of het toeslagenbeleid van een pensioenfonds toetsen? Of ben
je meer geïnteresseerd in de modellen die beleggingsfondsen gebruiken bij de
waardering van hun portfolio’s. Ernst & Young Actuarissen biedt de mogelijkheid
om je breed te ontwikkelen op zowel inhoudelijk als persoonlijk vlak. Wij zijn
onderdeel van een Europese organisatie waarin actuarissen uit alle financiële
centra van Europa samenwerken. In de dynamische markt waarin wij werken
hebben wij continu nieuwe adviseurs nodig. Voor onze kantoren in Amsterdam
en Utrecht zijn wij op zoek naar (Aankomende) actuarissen.
Ben je gedreven, leergierig, analytisch en adviseer je liever dan dat je
wordt geadviseerd. Dan heb jij de instelling die wij zoeken. Wij bieden jou
de mogelijkheid om na je studie als beginnend actuaris aan de slag te gaan.
Ook kun je tijdens je studie voor een dag in de week aan de slag gaan als
werkstudent of je afstudeerscriptie schrijven over een praktijk probleem.
Voor meer informatie kun je contact opnemen met Dieuwertje Huizer,
06-21252814 of [email protected]. Solliciteren kan op
www.ey.nl/carriere
belong to the latter group. The same holds for my fellow board members.
Tom Hanks, in the role of Forrest Gump, says in
the film of the same name: “Life is like a box of
chocolates... you never know what you’re gonna
get.” I believe we, as the current board, had
more or less this feeling only a few months
ago, when we decided to apply for a spot in the
2009-2010 board of our association. We took
a bonbon out of the chocolate box, while we
only were acquainted with it from the outside.
Just like we only could see a year in the board
from the outside. But once we would bite in
this bonbon, once we would be on the board,
we would taste the flavours of the inside. Not
until then, we could say whether we liked it
or not. Well, dear members, I can tell you now,
I definitely like the flavours of the inside. I will
try to explain why, by means of focusing on
two of those flavours.
activities in detail in this edition of Nekst. On
22 September, the National Econometricians
Football Tournament (NEFT ) took place in
Rotterdam. Our association participated with
seven enthusiastic teams, which was the
highest number of participating teams of all
the associations. On 17 September, the first
freshmen activity took place. Although there
were not as many participants as we hoped
for, it was a very pleasant evening. A third
activity took place on 26 September: Hart
van Brabantloop. Of course, our association
participated with a team. During this beautiful
day many of us broke their personal record.
Our Asset | Econometrics team finished as
68 th, leaving thirty competing teams behind
us. What a marvellous result, especially when
compared to other years.
On 28 August of this year, our board - at that
time still a candidate board - had to gather
at 7:00 o’clock for the start of our board
weekend. The board members at that time,
which organised the whole weekend, would
join us later on. I guess they preferred to lie
in their beds at this early hour during the
vacation. During this morning, we had to work
on the famous farm of our professor mister
Peters. While working on different heavy, but
nice, odd jobs, I tasted a, let us call it the first,
flavour of the inside of the bonbon. It was the
sweet flavour of team spirit. It is the same
flavour we taste when we work on several
activities for our association, while facing
deadlines and striving for the utmost quality
of activities.
Those activities bring me to a second
lovely flavour of a board year: the flavour
of successful activities. Of course, only due
to your participation these activities could
be successful, so thank you for this. It is
nice to see members enjoying the activities
organised by our association.
At this time of writing, several activities have
already passed. I will only shortly mention
them, since you can read about those
Name:
Harold van Heijst
Position:
Chairman
Asset | Econometrics
Board 2009-2010
One year back, we did not expect we would
be doing what we do right now, but we took
the bonbon, and we are glad we took this
one. We hope that the many activities that
lie ahead of us in this academic year will
also turn out to be a success. Hopefully we
will see you soon at (one of ) those activities!
On behalf of the Asset | Econometrics board,
Harold van Heijst
Chairman Asset | Econometrics
A \ R a ` U R a N N [dR g V T R c R _ Z\ T R [
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N ekst C ommittee 2 0 0 9 - 2 0 1 0
My name is Bart Kruize, a third year student,
and one of the new Nekst committee
members this year. Besides doing my
work for Nekst, I am also a member of the
committee organising the Orientation and
Information Day. A few of my interests
are: football, music, and history. Besides
playing futsal in a student competition, I
like hanging out with friends and going to
the great drinks and activities that Asset |
Econometrics organises. I hope my efforts
for Nekst will contribute to a magazine
that is both interesting and fun to read.
I am Dennis Jaheruddin, a new member of
the Nekst committee. Last year I organised
several drinks and activities, a task I really
enjoyed. This year I am the chairman of the
Business Research Programme, which is
definitely something to look forward to. I
am a third year student in Econometrics and
whenever I am not busy with my courses, I
will often be spotted where the beers are
cold and the music is good. Though my
favourite hobby is sleeping late, I am also
quite fond of playing chess and will accept
any challenge to a table tennis match.
My name is Harold van Heijst. This academic
year I am the chairman of our beautiful
study association. Like a lot of my fellow
Nekst committee members I am a third year
student in Econometrics & OR. Although
this year you will barely see me attending
lectures. Last year I gained some experience
in writing articles, as I was a member of the
Almanac committee. In my spare time I like
playing the drums. I will gladly contribute to
the continuation of the high standard of our
magazine. I hope you will all enjoy reading
Nekst.
(OEVEELISERNODIGOMONZEPENSIOENENINDETOE
INVESTERINGSSTRATEGIEÑN7EWERKENVOORTOONAAN
KOMSTTEKUNNENBETALEN2EKENINGHOUDENDMET
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MEEL7EZIJNOPZOEKNAARSTARTENDEENERVAREN
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MEDEWERKERSBIJVOORKEURMETEENOPLEIDING!CTU
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ONSWERKZOINTERESSANTENAFWISSELEND7ATSON
VOORMEERINFORMATIEOPWERKENBIJWATSONWYATTNL
7YATTADVISEERTONDERNEMINGENENORGANISATIES
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PENSIOENENBELONINGSSTRUCTURENVERZEKERINGENEN
7ATSON7YATT
:ETJEAANHETDENKEN
My name is Bas Verheul and I am a second
year student Econometrics & OR. This year
I have the privilege to work on the layout of Nekst, after learning the ins and
outs from my fellow committee member
Marleen during last year. In my spare
time I like going out and doing some
fun things with my friends. My favourite
sports are tennis and mountain biking
in the weekends. If I have some time left
during the day I also like playing guitar.
Bart Kruize
Dennis Jaheruddin
Harold van Heijst
Bas Verheul
Fang Qi Wu
Marleen Balvert
My name is Tess Beukers and I am a second
year student now. I became an active member
of Asset | Econometrics in my first year. I first
joined the Freshmen committee where I was
responsible for the finances and we organised
lots of nice activities. After six months, I also
joined the Nekst committee, because I like
writing articles. When I am not busy studying
or writing, I like reading books, skating and
going to the gym with some friends. I am also
learning how to play tennis.
Tess Beukers
Whitney Pattinaja
Hello there! The name is Fang Qi Wu - Fang
Qi being my first name - and I am proud to
proclaim my part in publishing this magazine.
As a freshman in Econometrics & Operations
Research, I am, unfortunately, void of any
Astrics experience, but I will get rid of that
status soon enough. Apart from writing I
never get bored of reading, pestering friends in a loving way - and playing piano and violin,
although I started the latter only a year ago. I
bet you cannot wait to read all the fun stuff I
am going to write!
My name is Marleen Balvert. As most of
you probably already know, I am this year’s
secretary of Asset | Econometrics. I am also
the board member to be lucky enough to
coordinate the Nekst committee! Last year
I was in this committee as well and all of us
had a lot of fun writing, editing, meeting
and chatting together. This year, we have
some new members and some members
of the previous committee. I have a lot of
confidence in this year’s editors and I am
sure we will make four nice editions of
Nekst!
I am Whitney Pattinaja and I can proudly say
that I will be a committee member of this nice
magazine for the first editions. Last year I was
also a member of the Nekst committee and
I really enjoyed reading and writing different
kinds of articles. I am a third year student in
Econometrics & OR. At the moment, I am a
board member of Asset | Econometrics. In
my spare time I really enjoy hanging out with
friends of econometrics and friends of NoN, a
group of friends within student association
TSR Vidar.
r o m M alden t o H e y th u y s en
T he mothe r of P ascal H euije r jans
The Nekst committee is proud to introduce a new section: The mother of… In this new section, we will have
Pascal and Janny
Some children are much like their father,
others are much like their mother. It is
not hard to see where Pascal got his
looks from: he is very much like his
father. But from the inside, he also has
some characteristics of his mother. As
mentioned before, they both like to talk
a lot. Furthermore, they both like to keep
their living space cleared up and they
like mathematics. And when something
needs to be done, they both accept the
job themselves easily. Furthermore, they
like playing games and sports a lot. They
often watch crime scene investigation
series together, like Cold Case, CSI and
Bones. Mother and son also enjoy cooking
in the kitchen. Janny: “I like to bake an
apple pie.” “Those are really nice!” is the
immediate response of Pascal.
an interview with the mother of one of our members. The interview will be about her, her child and their
lives together. The very first mother to give an interview with Nekst is Janny Heuijerjans-van Burk, mother of
Pascal Heuijerjans. Nekst was invited for dinner and had a nice chat with Janny.
Name:
Janny Heuijerjans
-van Burk
Mother of:
Pascal Heuijerjans
Residence:
Heythuysen
Janny’s youth
Pascal lives in Heythuysen, which is close to
Roermond. We are welcomed by Pascal and both
his parents. But although Janny lives in Limburg,
she does not speak the dialect. She tells us that
she was born in Malden in 1959, where she lived
until she was nine years old. At that time, she
moved to Nijmegen with her parents and all
of her brothers and sisters. She has one sister
and five brothers, so she grew up in quite a
big family. “I liked the life with all my brothers
and sisters, but I never wanted to have so many
children myself,” she tells us. That is why Pascal
only has one younger brother, Stefan. But that
is not the only difference between Janny’s life
and Pascal’s life. Janny only got to finish lower
general secondary education (currently known
as VMBO). Just like Pascal she liked mathematics
a lot and wanted to study mathematics. But
instead, she had to help her parents with their
household. She, her brothers and her sister
worked at a farm. Her father had a van in
which he took them and other children in the
neighbourhood to the farm, where they helped
taking the beetroots from the ground, picking
up potatoes and more jobs like that.
Pascal was born. Janny stayed at home to care for
Pascal, which she did with much pleasure. After
a few years, in 1990, a second son, Stefan, was
born. Now she had two young boys to care for.
On the pictures of Pascal that were shown to us,
we could see that he was a cheerful little boy. As
you can see on the picture, he was always in for
a small joke. Janny also tells us that Pascal was
a sweet child when he was young. Besides that,
he was able to speak whole sentences at a very
young age and he let Janny and Jo know about
this all the time: talking was one of the main
hobbies of Pascal. And it still is. Janny tells us
about something that usually happened when
they drove in the car at night. Pascal used to ask
to his parents: “Where is the moon?” “Behind the
clouds,” Janny and Jo would answer. But Pascal
would not consider this to be a satisfying answer
and would ask: “Where behind the clouds?” This
could go on like this for quite some time.
In 1994, Pascal and Stefan both went to primary
school, so Janny had some spare time. Therefore,
she decided to get a job for three days a week
during the times Pascal and Stefan were at
school. At the moment, she works in a pharmacy;
In September 1983, something changed Janny’s
life completely. She went on a holiday with a
friend to Mallorca. There she met Jo Heuijerjans
on 8 September. They fell in love. Unlike most
people who fall in love during their holidays,
Janny and Jo saw each other many times after
this holiday and a serious relationship had
begun. Because Janny lived in Nijmegen and
Jo in Frankfurt they had to travel a lot. But as
it should be with true love, this could not keep
them apart. That is why Janny and Jo married in
1987. Jo got a job in Limburg, so they moved to
Heythuysen.
The kids
On 6 January 1988, something that still has a big
impact on the lives of our members happened:
Pascal singing: “It is
chocolate sprinkles!”
raining
Pascal and Janny
goes babysitting; helps people cleaning
their homes and since three weeks she
also delivers the mail. Besides that she
likes Sudoku and reads books whenever
she has the time.
“But the three men in our house do, so
sometimes I watch the game with them.”
At primary school, Pascal found the
classes very easy. Sometimes they had
combination groups, in which children
from two different years were combined.
For example, when Pascal was in his fifth
year (Dutch system), they had a group
which existed half of people from the
fifth and half of people from the sixth
year. But when the teacher started to
explain something to the sixth year,
Pascal also listened to the teacher and
learned about this already.
Pascal grew older
When we asked what Pascal was like
when he grew older, Janny is very clear
about this: “He was quite an adolescent.
He used to romp around a lot with his
brother. They challenged each other
all the time. But of course, I was still the
boss of the house.” At secondary school
Pascal had a lot of hobbies. He went to
swimming lessons five times a week, and
in the weekends he also had a match.
Stefan was also very busy with sports, so
both children were out a lot. “That was
not always fun, because I like it when my
children are at home.”
When Pascal was a kid, Janny did not
have much trouble with him. “He played
a lot with Stefan and a friend who lived
in the same street.” They played a lot in
the streets and did games like hide-andseek. Pascal has always been and still is a
big fan of Ajax. Unfortunately, his father
is a big fan of PSV. Both of them watch
football matches a lot. “I do not like to
watch sports games,” Janny tells us.
Janny likes spending time with her
husband and kids very much. They play
many games together, in which Pascal
sometimes had difficulties in accepting
his loss. But he learned to accept it,
although it is still hard for him to lose a
game against his father. Janny explains:
“He does not mind if I win the game,
because I play for fun, but Jo also plays
for winning.”
When we ask Janny what characteristics
Pascal still needs, she can only think of
one thing. Pascal has a hard time staying
focused on one task.
The future
We also liked to know whether Pascal
is the perfect son-in-law. “I think he is,”
Janny tells us. “He is not lazy, can be
very sweet, he is very social and cares
for other people. I did my job in raising
Pascal rather well. At least he can do his
own laundry now!” But this also takes us
to the next question: is Janny the perfect
mother-in-law? “That depends on the
demands I need to meet. I would like to
babysit the grandchildren sometimes,
but not too often please.”
To finish the interview, we asked Janny
if she had one last advice for Pascal.
“Keep going the way you are now,” she
answered. “I am proud of you, and I hope
you will continue enjoying your time at
Tilburg University and keeping up the
good work.” |
Text by: Marleen Balvert
nt r o d u cti o n t o til b u r g
u ni v e r s it y
M ak - camp & T ik - week
There is really very much to tell about the magnificent MAK-camp experience of the econometrics group,
This
dolorem
year,
velesequat
the TIK-week
estie dolobor
took place
se from
delesse
Monday
quamet
17ver
August
si.
until Friday 21 cum
August
veliquis
– fornos
most
eugait
of us
nosto
even
conulup
better known as France. I would really like to share it all with you up to the smallest details, but that would
zzriliquat
vel dipis
gait, velisweek
dolobore
dipit
lamet, comaliquat ad
er sim del
till
Saturday!
Thealiquatummy
TIK-week is num
an introduction
for all
students
startingvelessit
their studies
at magnibh
Avans, Fontys
or
fill this whole edition of Nekst, so I will restrict myself to a small summary containing only the brightest
dolobore University.
conse ver sum
nos autat,
vel
eum aut lor sit aliquisit
nonsed
Tilburg
Many
freshmen
ofnum
theilisi.
Econometrics programme were aliquis
also participating.
I will tell
you
highlights of the MAK-camp.
almost
facilla commy
everything
nullaore
about
dolorerit,
what happened
si
et dunt
during
velendre
this week.
modio con hendre
Name:
Robbert van Oosten
Age:
19
Begin studies:
2008
My fellow mentor, Anouk, arrived at the meeting
place near Eindhoven central station just in time,
although she slept so well and so long that she
had missed the train. The groups were to be made
and together we started looking for our kids.
Between all the sad not-French people, who could
only look desirably in our direction, there were
seventeen happy faces that joined our French
crew. But the kids did not know what Anouk and
I had prepared for them. Not only had all of them
to introduce themselves by telling their name, age
and other information, they also had to answer
questions for which they were not prepared, such
as: what was the most embarrassing moment
in your life, how long do you shower, what fruit
would you like to be and so on. As soon as the
ice was broken we were called for canoeing. If
there were countries which had not been thrown
into the water by the dreaded French, then they
deserve a reward! ‘Vive la France’ sounded over
the haunted waters almost unstoppably.
All dried up and fed afterwards, we went to the
forest games. On our way we sang our French
song: ‘Voulez vous couchez avec moi?’ Vive la
France! In the forest, Anouk set a record with
jeanshanging which was three times as long as
the record of last year. France climbed over a ten
metre high beam twice; everyone managed to
get through a totally dark labyrinth and switched
cloths; and above all the whole French crew ran
voluntary into the ‘Famous Tarzan’ (the most dirty
ditch that you can imagine) shouting ‘Vive la
France’.
The remainder of the day was not captivating
enough to mention; apart from telling about
the show and the party of course! Amazing! In
the show, Marleen and Freek went on stage to
steel the hearts of the jury and not only did they
succeed, but Marleen also broke an egg on Freek’s
head after she heard they had won. The party
was so nice, not one member of France could be
found in his or her bed. On the contrary, they were
all dancing their asses off on the dance floor till
the music had long been stopped and they got
kicked out!
The next day there was a lot to do! Not only did
we learn break dancing and self-defence, but we
also won the crate race by far and we got totally
dirty with custard and mud during another game.
I should not forget to mention that Anouk got
her head into something so incredibly nasty
during the nasty twister game. Furthermore,
we made a huge chain with all our clothes. For
this last challenge, we first put our total suitcase
contents on our bodies and then took everything
off during the game (including our underwear).
We created a chain almost as long as the Chinese
Wall! Vive la France!
We celebrated the last party with none other than
the Asset | Econometrics board members! And we
celebrated till we dropped. Not just because we
like to party, but also because during this evening
the best group of the MAK-camp would be chosen.
Of course we wanted to be that group! Italy was
also a very nice mentor group, so we were very
anxious to know the outcome. Eventually the
MAKkers gave the title of MAK-group of the camp
to… France! We won! And as a reward we could
drink one hundred free beers at Café Philip on 15
September, which we have enjoyed a lot.
The next day, all tired out and suffering from a
terrible hangover, but very happy, we went to the
bus early in the morning and waved the MAKkers
a happy goodbye! See you next year?
Canoeing at the MAK-camp
10
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11
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I nt r o d u cti o n t o til b u r g
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12 Nov
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17 Nov
Tilburg University
19 Nov
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23 Nov
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25 Nov
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When I decided that I wanted to study and live in Tilburg, I knew that it would be connected to many difficulties:
a strange environment, a different culture and new challenges. I was a little afraid, like every freshman. Then
I heard about the Welcome Week, whose purpose was to prepare us for changes. As the beginning is always
tough, so I am even more grateful for the help of Tilburg University.
First Day
The Welcome Week started on 24 August.
The main idea of the first day was to get
acquainted with the new environment. For
that purpose, we met our buddies. I appreciate
their commitment, because in my opinion
only students could give us some insight
into the real life in Tilburg. They showed
us the whole campus and told the most
important information about buildings and
stuff. It enabled us to meet new people, but
also to feel a little bit at home. Furthermore,
during the information market we could get
an idea about many organisations. These
organisations create an interesting student
life.
Second Day
The second day consisted of very interesting
workshops. Personally, I think that it was the
most attractive day, because we could find
out more about Tilburg and the Dutch culture.
I participated in the workshop about Tilburg.
We talked about the history of the city and
we discussed advantages of living here as
well. We concluded that Tilburg has a lot to
offer and that encouraged me to discover
Tilburg on my own. The second workshop was
a lesson in the Dutch language. We quickly
found out that learning this language is not
an easy task.
Third Day
The next day was not very exciting for me,
because it was immigration day. My country,
Poland, belongs to the European Union, so
I did not have many problems with these
issues. However, I know from my friends that
it was a long day, because ‘paper matters’
are never easy. This exhausting day ended
with a meeting at the sports centre. The
sports centre of Tilburg University has many
facilities, that can help to relax in an active
way after the lectures.
Fourth Day
On the fourth day, we visited the most
important places of Tilburg. We visited shops,
the central station and places where we can
gather and have a good time with our friends.
Furthermore, we got an official welcome from
the City Hall, which gave us more information
about Tilburg. We started the evening
watching a movie: ‘Alles is Liefde’ (‘Everything
is Love’). It told us more about the mentality
of Dutch people. However, the most attractive
event of that night was the party: ‘The world
comes to Tilburg’. During this party, we could
present our own countries, because we were
allowed to dress in national outfits. It showed
the variety of many cultures!
Fifth Day
The last day was also very busy. We spent time
developing our communicative skills. For the
first time, we could meet Dutch students.
There were different activities, which helped
us to meet new people and also to show a little
of our own personalities. The competition
during the games on that day created team
spirit and improved cooperation between
students. At the end of the day, there was a
Holland Party. It convinced us that having a
good time is also a very important aspect of
studying at Tilburg University.
Name:
Edyta Korpas
Age:
20
Begin studies:
2009
The multiplicity of activities helped us a lot to
figure out every aspect of living and studying
in Tilburg. We could not only see how the
university works, but we also gained other
information about social life. I must admit
that the Welcome Week helped us overcome
fears that are connected to the start of a new
year. On behalf of all foreign freshmen, I would
like to thank everybody, who contributed to
the organisation of an interesting and helpful
Welcome Week. |
13
ein g o n the winnin g team
business inte r view flow t r ade r s
What were you doing on 21 September? Flow Traders was offering an interview to Nekst. A full description
of the company was given by Folkert Joling, a young and energetic man of thirty years, probably not
coincidentally the same age as our association! He has been working for Flow Traders for three years now
and is still very enthusiastic about his job.
Name:
Folkert Joling
Age:
30
Position:
Trader
Personal
Folkert Joling was born in Ede. He went to
high school in Harderwijk and he studied
applied mathematics in Enschede. He took
part in some committees during his studies
and followed an internship as a trader in
Amsterdam in his final year. Since high school
he has been very enthusiastic about the stock
market and he decided that he wanted to work
at Flow Traders. It did not take long before they
noticed his enthusiasm and up till now, he has
been working as a trader at Flow Traders. Some
econometricians are working at the company,
too. Joling indicates that his analytical skills
are most useful in his job. These skills help
him to oversee various situations and quick
calculations are made by heart.
Company Profile
Flow Traders was set up five years ago by four
talented traders. At this moment, the company
counts over a hundred employees inside and
outside the Netherlands. Two and a half years
ago, a trading centre was set up in Singapore
and another office was opened in New York
this year. Nowadays, there are over fifteen
employees responsible for the operations in
Singapore. Some of them are still working in
Amsterdam for the Asian markets. The last few
months, new employees are being trained for
their new functions in the United States of
America, so Flow Traders can also intensively
cover these markets. According to Joling,
three employees were sent to New York and
eventually a trader from every desk should be
transferred to this city. An important aspect of
these departures is the diversity in character
the company intends to send in order to
have a balanced team. Joling remarks that
he also wanted to work in New York, but they
probably needed him more in Amsterdam. The
language policy of the company concentrates
on English; however, Dutch is being spoken in
Amsterdam.
Since the company has grown beyond any
expectation, the usual ‘learn-at-desk’ strategy
is being replaced by a standardised education
of employees. Joling is one of those involved
with this education and spends a few hours a
week on this job. Flow Traders is continuously
searching for new traders and developers and
prefers young talent, since they listen well
and think creative. A good applicant can be
recognised by his drive to succeed, his analytical
skills and his decisiveness. Besides that, he can
handle with stress and can control his emotions.
A competitive spirit and love for “the game of
trading” are recommended characteristics, too.
Joling confesses: “I cannot stand losing a game,
except for losing because of an acceptable
cause.” An applicant for the company takes
part in a psychological test and a calculating
exam. After a few meetings with other traders,
he can get his first certificate in less than a
month. The first months are mainly focused on
practical knowledge. Everyone learns to trade
on German markets first and eventually even
on various international markets. There are a
lot of professions represented in the company,
like mathematics, economics and information
technology.
The Atmosphere
The atmosphere at the desks depends on
the markets. Usually everyone is focusing on
his quotes and communicating with others.
Headphones are not used, since overhearing
discussions makes you aware of the activity
of others. But sometimes markets can be very
turbulent and the atmosphere reacts on this
directly, using a red button in the middle of the
hall is the most drastic action. Because of some
serious decisions, all employees are very direct
to each other and point at mistakes without
hesitation. Unfortunately, some emotional
applicants cannot take the pressure and the
directness. When you are not trading, you make
a chat with colleagues at the bar in the office
14
N e w Yo r k S t o c k E x c h a n g e
or play a game in the arcade room.
Furthermore, all employees may join the
company trips to (for instance) a lake,
a ski resort, Roland Garros and Milan.
Joling enjoys the informal time with his
colleagues.
“A regular day at work begins with
analysing the results and checking the
positions of the previous day for one
hour. Thereafter, I enter the market as
a market maker. I offer as well as buy
products on the market. I aim for the
best ‘quotes’ and search for maximal
spreads. Trading takes about eighty
per cent of my time. The rest of the
day, I am looking for new arbitrages,
better hedges, analysing historical data,
etcetera. Furthermore, keeping an eye
on my positions is essential, because of
the shifting markets.” Besides all of this,
he is also responsible for the training of
new employees, as stated below. After
a drink in the bar, he usually leaves the
office at about seven o‘clock. In his spare
time, Joling plays hockey and likes to
read the newspapers. “If you do not keep
up, you will fall behind.” He also studies
some mathematics every now and then.
Up till now, he enjoys his work at Flow
Traders and seldom takes a day off.
The Trading Process
The stereotype view of the stock market
as an open hall is already outdated in
Europe. Financial products are nowadays
traded via digital networks. Joling never
sees who he is trading with, because of
this anonymity. In America on the other
hand, a merchant is present on the stock
market and he has to be called to make
a trade. Since the communication with
Europe is relatively slow, the new office
in New York will take over the trading
process. The stock market is not the only
place where Flow Traders is present.
Several sales traders are responsible for
maintaining contact with partners and
trying to buy obligations and private
equity.
The division of tasks among traders
is mainly based on personal interests
and on the basis of required activity
on a segment of the market. The
office in Amsterdam consists of seven
desks in total: each with their own
specialisation. An average trader
switches desks a few times a year. This
also holds for Joling, who switched
almost five times in three years. In
these years, he learned techniques
like pair-trading and index-trading.
Pair-trading is based on the fact that
two products with almost the same
characteristics can be used to trade
with minimal risk. Index-trading is the
technique of trading portfolios that
are slightly different from an index,
like the AEX, with the index itself.
Since Flow Traders is not the only company
in its kind, competitors are counteracting
the profit or “spread” that can be made
on certain transactions. The size of the
arbitrage thus decreases. However, Joling
explains: “Whenever the spread is low, a
large profit can be made by increasing
the volume. More risky products are
made with a substantial lower volume,
but yield a higher spread.” Because of
the complexity of the financial markets,
Joling reflects on arbitrage-trading as a
sustainable profession. “If you are able to
keep the overview and be quick, you can
outperform the other traders and make
a nice profit.” A good trader is always the
first one to sell or buy a product at an
optimal price at an optimal time.“A trader
needs to be agile, clever and decisive.”
The reason will be obvious: seconds
matter in the world of trading. In order
to be able to achieve this agility, Flow
Traders maintains a team of developers
and information technologists of about
thirty experts. “This office contains a lot
of financial software and a very quick
connection to the Internet.” Next to
being quick, you should also act wisely.
In case of a loss, you ought to be able to
explain your choices on rational grounds.
The chief, also called the head of trading,
can check their transactions anytime.
Working at Flow Traders
After talking about the credit crunch
and the nice profit this meant for Flow
Traders, Joling assured us that you
should not worry about your future
here. The structure of the company is
flat and everyone gets rewarded for his
achievements. Therefore, setting up his
own trading company is not Joling’s
ambition. According to him, you need
software, partners and money. “These
times are too rough for a small company;
even banks are having serious problems
with setting up trading projects.”
Therefore, Joling is very proud of the
achievements of Flow Traders:“It is always
fun to be on the winning team.” |
Text by: Frans Fonville
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During the TIK-week, I was just walking around with some study mates at the information market at Tilburg
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University. Suddenly, the new board of Asset | Econometrics interrupted our lovely conversation. They asked us if
we wanted to subscribe for the introduction activity. Of course we wanted to subscribe! So after I checked at home
if I did not have any other activities that afternoon, I subscribed myself for the activity. We were going to play some
games of the famous television programme ‘Who is the Mole?’. After these games, we would have a barbecue.
Who is the Mole?
A few weeks later, it finally was Wednesday 2
September. At 12.45 hours, we entered lecture room
DZ1, where we gathered to have a delicious lunch.
When we registered, we heard in which team we
were divided. After the lunch, an envelope was given
to each of us. A paper inside this envelope told us
whether we were the mole or not.
After this quite funny game, we went to the Rope
game. There we heard that the number we had to
choose before, stands for the number of metres rope
we received in order to measure a very long distance
between two bottles of beer. So the number two
was not a really good choice. After we measured, for
what seemed to take hours, we found a distance of
approximately 360 metres.
For the ones who never heard about the game ‘Who
is the Mole?’, I will give a short explanation of the
game: there is a group of people who have to play
several games to earn money. But one of them has
to prevent earning money remaining undiscovered:
this person is the mole. Of course, nobody knows
who the mole is except for the mole himself. The
goal of the game is to find out who the mole is.
In our version of this game, it was not about the
money. Each group (of approximately five people)
contained one mole. We had to play several games
and earn as many points as possible. But of course,
the mole had to prevent this.
Now it was time for us to go to the Signal game. We
had to signal the word ‘barbecue’ to each other, using
flags, a flashlight and drawing. But because I already
messed it up by using the flags in the wrong way, this
game was a huge disaster for our team. After a nice
break, we went to the Film game. There we heard
that we had to make a film that had to be as funny
as possible. Unfortunately, I had to go to a tutorial
of the course ‘Proofs and Techniques’, so I could not
participate in this game (lucky me). Because of this
tutorial, I also missed the last two games (the Car and
Beer game), but I heard those games were also great!
After the games, we went back to the lecture room
where this exciting afternoon started. We played
the final game, in which we had to answer fifteen
questions one by one. But if somebody of your team
gave a wrong answer, another member of the team
had to start all over again. Finally we had to fill in a
form which consisted of questions about the mole.
Let me return to the moment of receiving the
envelope. At this moment, we all knew if we were the
mole or not. After this exciting moment, a member of
the board of Asset | Econometrics came to each group
to ask if they wanted to pick a number between 1 and
20.They did not tell us for what purpose.We chose the
number two. Later on, we found out that this number
was not a very good choice…
Games
At 13.50 hours the first games started. We started
with the Ski game. That is a game in which you have
to walk with your whole team simultaneously, with
your shoes all in the same wooden skis. After we
walked the (instinctively) very long distance with
the skis, we had to walk back the same distance,
but now all in a ‘hamster-thing’: you walk after
each other in a big plastic ‘wheel’ and the last one
‘gives’ this plastic thing to the first one, and so on.
Name:
Geert Alkema
Age:
16
Begin studies:
2009
Barbecue
All these games made us feel very hungry, so it was
time for the barbecue! We walked to the sports centre
of the university in order to have a delicious barbecue.
We chatted for quite a long time. After everyone ate
as many hamburgers as possible, the new board of
Asset | Econometrics revealed which team and which
mole were the best. The only thing left that made this
beautiful evening complete, was watching the films
made during the Film game. Unfortunately, our film
was judged being worst (we still do not know why),
but that could not give us a bad feeling about this
great introduction activity! |
17
ack t o s ch o o l
A new b o a r d
column
G mm and d r ink
The famous Dutch poet Herman Gorter (1864-1927) once wrote “Een nieuwe lente, een nieuw geluid”.1
On 8 September 2009, the General Members Meeting (GMM) of Asset | Econometrics and of course the
Not only did he make himself immortal with this sentence - every high school graduate should know this
drink afterwards took place. Even though the desired quorum had not always been reached during a GMM,
sentence by heart - that starts off the epic poem “Mei”,2 but he also disqualified himself as an academic. For
this time the turnout was quite large. People of all years had come to The Gallery to attend the meeting,
in academia, everyone knows that “A new September, a new sound” is more accurate.
including a few students from abroad and several freshmen!
For it is September that brings many a new
sound to the campus of Tilburg University,
when hordes of new students arrive and fill
the air with familiar phrases. 3 Phrases like: “I
did not quite get what the teacher was saying”,
which are often responded to by a fellow
student with the comforting words “Really? I
thought it was rather easy.” The latter student
is bound to receive a 2 (out of 10) on the next
exam. 4 And vice versa, the university is new
to them. 5
Name:
Gerwald van Gulick
Position:
PhD Candidate
In fact, the board of the Faculty of Economics
and Business Administration thought it was
all too new for them. 6 What these students
really need, is something to absorb the
shock. Something to reassure them that and
make them forget they are now enrolled in
a university. Hence, in their infinite wisdom,
the board has decided that from now on, we
are no longer a faculty, but rather, we are all
part of the Tilburg School of Economics and
Management ( TISEM). So, back to School it is.
The rationale is that the term School will
reinforce the international image of the
university. 7 Apparently, an international image
is a goal in itself. I suspect that ‘international
image’ is suspected to be a proxy for ‘quality’
and it certainly pays off to maximise ones
proxies, right? 8 It might work for international
students. But I think Dutch students might
associate School with something else than a
university with a strong international image:
high school. Let us hope this name change
does not come with the typical High School
mentality.
completed the MPhil programme. Instead,
the title Master of Science (MSc) is to be used.
Coincidentally, MPhil is an internationally
renowned title and in a much higher standing
than MSc. However, when asked about this by
some angry students, 9 TISEM responded that
the value of the title is not in its name, but
rather in the excellent programme itself, that
remains unchanged. What is in a name?
Several people had been looking forward
to the GMM and they wondered how well
Asset | Econometrics had coped with
the credit crunch in the past year and if
there would still be sufficient funds for
free barrels of beer. Furthermore, this day
was even more exciting for some of us,
as today the vote for a new board would
take place.
The attentive reader may have noticed that
these two reasonings conflict in the worst
of ways: the name change to School is worth
spending millions on, but the name change to
MPhil is not worth lobbying for. In both cases,
the impact of the name change is largely the
international image: how much more could
they be alike? And the funny thing is that I
received news about this (from TISEM) in the
same week.
At the start of the meeting Tess Beukers
was asked to be voting commissioner:
a small task during a regular meeting.
However, since a lot of people joined
the meeting later, the amount of voters
present had to be corrected regularly.
This fact combined with some confusing
voting rounds, made the counting of the
votes worth mentioning.
After “Mei”, Herman Gorter denounced the
poetic principles he had used and started on
more politically motivated work. I am starting
to wonder if maybe this qualifies Gorter as an
academic after all. |
1. This translates into “a new spring, a new sound”.
After the budget and the realisation of the
past academic year had been reviewed
and everything seemed to have turned
out quite well, the candidate board
members got the chance to present
themselves. After Harold van Heijst,
Marleen Balvert, Anouk Rennen, Whitney
Pattinaja and Stèphanie van Breda had
declared which tasks they wished to fulfil
in the upcoming year – some of them
seemed to be slightly more nervous than
others - the vote for the appointment of
the candidate board was unanimous and
the board change took place.
Now the plans and budget for the
upcoming year were presented by the
new board. Furthermore, a new Finance
Monitoring Committee (FMC) was needed.
Besides the appointment of Stefan Damen
and Kay Mennens for this committee,
two members present at the GMM were
needed for this committee. However,
since Paul Peters wished to be re-elected
and both Bart Kruize and Thomas Geelen
boldly volunteered, it was decided that
not two, but three members would be
chosen for the FMC. After everything was
approved of as expected, the meeting
closed and everyone got the opportunity
to congratulate the new board members.
Now that all formalities had been taken
care of, it was time to head for the drink
in Café Qwibus. Apparently the start of
the drink was scheduled before the end
of the GMM, so when all people from the
meeting arrived, the place was instantly
crowded. The long time of listening must
have made everyone very thirsty as the
first barrel of beer ran out in a blink of
the eye. The former board members
were thanked for their efforts during the
past year and were given a small gift to
remind the good times. Afterwards, the
former board and the new board were
going to compete in a beer race. The new
board members battled fiercely, but the
former board did not lose control and
was victorious. Then something peculiar
happened: a team of freshmen challenged
the former board members for another
beer race. Of course there was no doubt
in my mind about who would win this
race, but I decided to watch the match
anyway. After a good start the former
board took the lead, but suddenly they
slowed down a little and the freshmen
managed to finish their beers first! All in
all it had been an interesting GMM and a
nice drink. I am already looking forward
to the next drinks and meetings. |
Text by: Dennis Jaheruddin
2. “May”.
3. It is astounding how familiar a ‘new’ sound can be.
4. Incidentally, the former student most likely receives a 2 too. That
is econometrics for you.
5. Of course, there are students at the university who continue what
they have been doing in the last year of high school: orientating on
their next studies.
6. Econometrics and Operations Research belongs to this faculty.
7. They print this themselves in their newsletter regarding the name
change.
The name change mostly seems to bother
lecturers. However, there has been another
name change about and this time it is the
students that are fussed. It turned out
that the university was unable to convince
politicians that the title Master of Philosophy
(MPhil) should be rewarded to students who
8. If you consider ‘yes’ as the proper answer to this question, you
should consider picking the master ‘Marketing Research’.
9. These students were promised the MPhil title and claimed they
had based their decision to start their studies in Tilburg on this
promise.
18
Who votes for?
19
e r capita p r en u cle o l u s
T r iangel
The main goal of cooperative game theory is to analyse fair allocations of joint benefits obtained by means of
cooperation. In the literature there exist several solution concepts, each concept with its own properties. In this
article we discuss several properties of a solution concept that has been introduced in 1970 by Grotte1, but is barely
studied: the per capita prenucleolus. This research is part of joint work with Javier Arin and Hans Reijnierse.
Name:
John Kleppe
Position:
Teacher
Interaction between decision makers (players)
can lead to cooperative or competitive
behaviour. Game theory is the mathematical
tool to study such behaviour. An important
branch of game theory is cooperative game
theory, which studies situations where players
can cooperate in order to generate benefits
(or reduce costs). Its main focus is on the
study of fair allocations of the joint benefits
by means of cooperation. The most commonly
used model in this type of situations is that
of transferable utility games. In a transferable
utility (or TU) game each coalition of players
is associated with a certain worth, which
corresponds to the benefits this coalition
can obtain without help from players outside
the coalition. These coalitional worths can
be used as a reference point for dividing the
worth of the grand coalition (the coalition of
all players). Formally, a TU-game is defined
by
, with
the finite set of players and
the characteristic function
assigning to every coalition
of players
a worth
.
Once a TU-game is defined the question
is how to use this information to obtain a
fair allocation. There are several solution
concepts in the literature. The preimputation
set
is the set of efficient allocations,
which means that it is the set of allocations
for which the worth of the grand coalition
is (exactly) divided among the players of
the game. A solution concept
associates
with each TU-game
a subset (possibly
a single element) of the preimputation set,
hence
for all
. The
most fundamental solution concept for TUgames is the core
(Gillies (1959) 2),
which consists of all efficient allocations that
satisfy stability. An allocation is stable if no
coalition of players is better off by separating
from the grand coalition and obtaining its
coalitional worth. Hence, if in a three-player
TU-game the coalition of players 1 and 2 has
a worth of 10, any stable allocation gives at
least 10 to players 1 and 2 together.
The core of a TU-game generally consists of
more than one element. There are also several
single-valued solution concepts that associate
with each TU-game exactly one allocation,
i.e.,
for all
. One of the most
important and studied single-valued solution
concepts for TU-games is the prenucleolus (cf.
Schmeidler (1969) 3). The prenucleolus is the
unique element in the preimputation set for
which the maximal coalitional objection to
it is minimised. Related to the prenucleolus
is the per capita prenucleolus. The per capita
prenucleolus is the unique element in the
preimputation set for which the maximal
objection per player of a coalition to it is
minimised. In short, for the prenucleolus all
coalitions are equally important, while for
the per capita prenucleolus all players of all
coalitions are equally important.
Example
To illustrate a difference between the
prenucleolus and the per capita prenucleolus
we consider the following
ten-player TUgame
. Let = {1, . . . , 10},
= {1, 2} and
. The coalitional
worths are given by
Hence, players 1 and 2 can obtain 18 in any
coalition (unequal to
) of which they are
both a member, while players 3 to 10 can
obtain 72 in any coalition (unequal to )) of
20
which they are all a member. Therefore,
the only interesting coalitions of
this game are
and , in which the
average payoff is 9, and
, in which
the average payoff is 10. We consider
solution concepts that are both a core
selector and satisfy anonymity. Let
denote the payoff to player
. A
solution concept is a core selector if it
selects for each TU-game a subset of the
core, whenever the core is non-empty,
i.e.,
if
. For
this game this implies that
,
and
. A
solution concept satisfies anonymity
if the names of the players do not
influence their payoff. Consequently,
all benefits of
must be equally
distributed among the players in
. Given these two requirements
the only question that remains is how
to divide the additional benefits of
obtained by full cooperation among
the players of coalitions and . Both
the prenucleolus and the per capita
prenucleolus satisfy core selection
and anonymity.
The idea behind the prenucleolus is
that (the complaint of ) every coalition
is equally important. Consequently,
since the cooperation of two disjoint
coalitions (
and
) is needed to
obtain the additional benefits of
10, both coalitions receive an equal
amount of these benefits. However, due
to the fact that coalition
contains
more players than , each player in
gets less than each player in . The
prenucleolus of this game,
, is
given by
if
and
if
.
The idea behind the per capita
prenucleolus is that (the complaint of )
each player in every coalition is equally
important. Hence, since all players are
needed to form the grand coalition
and all players receive 9 if and
do
not cooperate (but act as two separate
coalitions), the additional benefits of
10 are equally divided into 10 parts
such that each player receives 1.
Therefore, the per capita prenucleolus
of this game,
, is given by
for all
.
Based on this example one might have
a preference for the prenucleolus or the
per capita prenucleolus. In any case, it
seems enough reason to investigate
the per capita prenucleolus in more
detail, and in particular discuss the
differences with the prenucleolus.
It turns out that the per capita
prenucleolus satisfies, next to core
selection and anonymity, a number
of interesting properties of which we
discuss a few in this article. First of all,
it follows from the definition (since the
per capita prenucleolus is an element
of the preimputation set) that the per
capita prenuceolus satisfies efficiency.
Secondly, the per capita prenucleolus
is single-valued, which means that
each TU-game has exactly one per
capita prenucleolus. A third important
property that is satisfied by the per
capita prenucleolus is covariance. We
use the next example to illustrate this
property.
Example
Consider the three-player game
depicted below.
{1} {2} {3} {1,2} {1,3} {2,3}
0 0 0
5
5
10 20
The per capita prenucleolus of this game
is given by
=
.
Also consider the three-player game
depicted below.
{1} {2} {3} {1,2} {1,3} {2,3}
1 1 2 12 13
23 44
The games
and
may look
completely different on first sight, they
are however closely related, as
=
for all
, with
= 2 and
= (1,1,2). Hence, TU-game
can be transformed into
by rescaling of monetary units
and
giving a fixed amount to some players.
Since
and
are related in a
specific way it would make no sense
for a solution concept to associate the
two games with two unrelated sets
of solutions. The property covariance
requires that this is indeed not the
case and that a single-valued solution
concept follows the same utility
transformation as the game. Since
the per capita prenucleolus satisfies
covariance the per capita prenucleolus
of
is given by
=
+
=
+
=
.
Another desirable property for a
solution concept is monotonicity, which
requires that if one of the coalitional
worths changes, the payoffs of the
members of this coalition change
in the same direction. The most
well-known form of monotonicity is
coalitional monotonicity. Let
and
be two TU-games and let be a
single-valued solution concept. Then
is coalitionally monotonic if (whenever)
for some
and
for all
, then
for all
. This
property states that if the worth of
only one coalition increases all its
members should be (weakly) better off.
Young (1985) 4 shows that a solution
concept cannot be both coalitionally
monotonic and a core selector.
Therefore, both the prenucleolus and
the per capita prenucleolus are not
coalitionally monotonic. However,
this is not the end of the story, as the
next example illustrates two other
monotonicity concepts.
Example
Consider the four-player TU-game
depicted below, where
represents any single-player (twoplayer) coalition.
21
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meer nodig dan talent.
Met talent kan de wereld aan je voeten liggen. Maar talent alleen is nooit genoeg om de top te bereiken. Daarom is de Rabobank
al jaren sponsor van toptalenten uit de sportwereld. Want wij geloven dat talent gestuurd moet worden, tot bloei moet komen,
om vervolgens met de beste begeleiding het hoogste niveau te halen. Binnen de bank doen we dat niet anders. Talent is bijzonder.
Het moet gekoesterd en ontwikkeld worden. Alleen op die manier kan jouw talent uitgroeien tot een succesvolle carrière.
Spreekt onze zakelijke en menselijke benadering ook jou aan? Groei dan mee met een bank die nationaal en internationaal flink aan
de weg timmert. Wil je meer weten over de Rabobank als werkgever en over de vacatures die we op dit moment hebben? Kijk dan
op www.rabobank.nl/werken.
Carrière maken bij dé favoriete
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Het is tijd voor de Rabobank.
0
{1,2,3} {1,2,4} {1,3,4} {2,3,4}
0
0
10
10
10 10
This game could represent a situation
in which player 4 owns a piece of
machinery that needs to be handled by
three players (player 4 and two others)
to produce something with a benefit
of 10. Consequently, any coalition with
less than three players obtains no
benefits, but also any coalition without
player 4 gets nothing, in particular
coalition {1, 2, 3}. Since player 4 is vital
to obtain the worth of 10 the core
of this game is equal to (0, 0, 0, 10).
Therefore, both the prenucleolus and
the per capita prenucleolus are equal
to this allocation.
{2} or {3}) is just as important as
the complaint of the three-player
coalitions ({1, 2, 4}, {1, 3, 4} and {2, 3, 4}).
This is not the case for the per capita
prenucleolus where the complaint of
the three-player coalitions is three
times as important as that of a singleplayer coalition. Therefore, according
to the per capita prenucleolus each
player gets the payoff of
and the
additional value of 1 is equally divided
over all players. Hence, the per capita
prenucleolus is given by
=
.
To generalise this example, the per
capita prenucleolus satisfies strong
aggregate monotonicity (and therefore
also aggregate monotonicity), a property
not satisfied by the prenucleolus.
Let
and
be two TUIn the above situation it holds that if
games and let
be a single-valued
three players (including player 4) are
solution concept. Then
satisfies
working the machine, the next player
aggregate monotonicity if (whenever)
adds no benefits. Let us now suppose
for all
and
that this player can be of some use
, then
and is able to add a value of 1. Then
for all
Furthermore,
satisfies
all coalitional worths remain the same,
strong aggregate monotonicity if
except for the worth of the grand
(whenever)
for all
coalition as it increases from 10 to 11.
and
,
then
This gives the TU-game
.
=
for all
. Aggregate monotonicity
has the following interpretation. If
{1,2,3} {1,2,4} {1,3,4} {2,3,4}
the worth of the grand coalition is
0 0
0
10
10
10 11 increased, while at the same time
the worth of any proper subcoalition
remains unchanged, then everybody
Note that player 4 is still in full control
should benefit from the increase of
of the machine that gives a benefit of
. Moreover, strong aggregate
10. Nevertheless, the prenucleolus of
monotonicity requires that everyone
is given by
=
,
should benefit by receiving an equal
which means that player 4 gets less in
share of the additional benefits.
this setup. Hence, although the worth
of the grand coalition increases while
The per capita prenucleolus also
all others remain the same, the payoff
satisfies several other interesting
to player 4 gets lower. The reason is
properties.For an overview and more
that the complaint over the allocation
results of this concept and the related
of each single-player coalition ({1},
concepts of the per capita nucleolus,
the per capita prekernel and the per
capita kernel, I refer to Kleppe (2009) 5. |
Reference list
1. Grotte, J. (1970). Computation of and Observations on the
Nucleolus, the Normalised Nucleolus and the Central Games.
PhD thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca.
2. Gillies, D. (1959). Solutions to general non-zero-sum
games. Contributions to the Theory of Games, 4, 541-553.
3. Schmeidler, D. (1969). The nucleolus of a characteristic
function game. SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics, 17,
1163-1170.
4. Young, H. (1985). Monotonic solutions of cooperative
games. International Journal of Game Theory, 14, 65-72.
5. Kleppe, J. (2009). Modelling Interactive Behaviour, and
Solution Concepts. PhD thesis, Tilburg University, Tilburg.
www.rabobank.nl/werken
23
y hemin g wa y
E xchange r epo r t
On a Monday in December, Mr Schumacher had an unusual announcement at the beginning of the lecture of
the course Financial Models. “I would like to have your attention for this internship offered by CAAM Paris.
Tilburg Centre of Finance arranged a possibility to write your Master’s thesis in this lovely city. In my opinion
there are worse places to stay for six months.”
Name:
Bas Hamers
Age:
23
Begin studies:
2004
Internship
At first it was not clear to me at which company
the internship would be, but soon I found
out that CAAM is an abbreviation for Crédit
Agricole Asset Management. I was already
interested from the moment Mr Schumacher
switched from the announcement to the five
different derivations of the Black-Scholes
equation. As soon as possible I sent an email
to the capital of France to indicate that I was
very interested in the internship and that I
would like to have some more information.
The Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange (FX) and
Volatility Strategy team of CAAM was looking
for an intern starting in January, while my
Master’s courses would at least last until April.
Chapter Paris closed, one would say. With the
fresh start of a new year, I received a dose of
fresh luck. I passed Financial Models and on
top of that, the people in Paris questioned
whether I was still interested in the internship.
After a first interview by phone at the end of
January and a second interview in Paris, I got
a confirmation that I was the lucky one, who
could prepare himself for a unique stay in the
capital of France.
On Easter Monday, the major part of my
belongings was transported to Paris. I found
a ‘studio meublé’ (actually a double room
apartment) after two trips and six visits to
possible accommodations. But, as I would
only stay in Paris for half a year, I dreamed
of a particular kind of building to live in for
that period. A so-called ‘Haussman’ building
with the familiar stone and wooden shutters
in front of the windows, which is typical for
Paris. And that is what I found for a rent that
was somewhat more than four times my rent
in Tilburg. But to be honest, it is impossible in
Tilburg to live within a hundred metres from
the Eiffel Tower. My apartment was situated
perfectly. The only disadvantages were the lack
of an elevator and the daily slalom through
the enormous amount of tourists when I
returned after a working day. But the former
disadvantage became an - call it a Cruijffian
- advantage: I will never forget my bike keys
anymore before I close the door behind me.
Six floors up and down again for a pair of keys
is a good example of operant conditioning.
Paris
In Paris, I was a member of the Fixed Income,
FX and Volatility Strategy team that provides
parties inside and outside CAAM with its views
on, not surprisingly, fixed income, foreign
exchange and volatility. On the other hand, the
team members work on studies concerning
new strategies within these market segments,
work that often results in academic papers.
The research for my Master’s thesis is a clear
example of the latter objective. The team, in
line with the Strategy department, consisted
T h e E i f f e l To w e r w i t h f i r e w o r k s
24
To u r d e F r a n c e
of many nationalities. It was great to
work with two French, one Togolese,
one Italian and a Lebanese colleague.
Despite these different backgrounds,
all the cultures adapted well to the
French one. This means that you should
enter the office at nine o’clock or later,
start with a strong coffee together with
your colleagues, take a big break in
the afternoon to enjoy a three course
dinner and work late until at least 18.30
hours. I also changed my habits quickly,
although I always started to work at
08.30 hours in the morning. The first half
an hour of each weekday was probably
the quietest moment I had in Paris, a city
that starts rushing early in the morning
and calms down when every normal
person already sleeps. But strangely,
Paris is apparently built in such a way
that you can escape the fuss of (slow
moving) tourists, never stopping traffic
and hordes of commuting people
bursting out of metro stations. When
you deviate from the famous avenues
or boulevards, most of the time you will
find an oasis of rest without annoying
tourists or traffic that always wants to
hit you. Of course you can bump into
one of the several parks Paris contains.
My most visited park was ‘Champ de
Mars’ next to the Eiffel Tower, because
it was the closest to my home.
Experiences
My visitors loved to have breakfast
in the shade of the Eiffel Tower and
apparently my favourite bakery had the
best croissants of Paris 1. Visitors were a
main theme during my period abroad.
Of the 26 weekends I was in Paris,
fourteen were filled with people visiting
me and the city of lights. It is really nice
to show people around in Paris during
day time; to go out at night; to wake
up early again, so your visitor does not
spend his time in Paris sleeping; and,
as a result, to feel wasted on Mondays.
But what remains are nice memories
and experiences like visiting rugby and
football matches; the arrival of ‘Le Tour
de France’; being refused at four clubs
throughout Paris in one night; and
acting like ‘bourgeoisie’ at the biggest
horse racing event in the whole world.
One particular experience is worth
more than just mentioning. It is a bar
where the prices of the drinks fluctuate
depending on the demand as on a stock
exchange. When you ask however if it is
possible to buy derivatives on certain
drinks, this results in a look from the
bar lady who thinks you had enough.
But remember: not everyone studied
Econometrics! Prices are, fluctuating or
not, high in Paris. As a universal bench
mark, at least students might prefer it
to the Big Mac Index, the price of beer
can indicate accurately how expensive
a city is. In Tilburg one speaks of a
scandal if bars ask two euros or more
for a beer. In Paris you should not be
surprised when they ask you to pay five.
Therefore, one particular bar, very close
to the Notre Dame in the very centre
of the city, became my favourite bar.
They serve pints until 22.00 hours for
a reasonable price of three euros and
fifty centimes. But please, do not get
a wrong image of me being in this bar
every night. On the contrary, a Parisian
friend of mine asked me to join him at
the semi-marathon of Lyon. We had six
weeks to train for this event of torture
as training schedules advised to train at
least twelve weeks for a semi-marathon.
But we made it in a reasonable time and
besides that, we enjoyed the lovely city
of Lyon for a weekend. Of course we
went there by TGV and this transport
system is the last topic I want to brag
about. It is great! The TGV brings you in
a few hours from the North of France
to the South without traffic jams and
with a dining car (like the Netherlands
Railways used to have). You can even
borrow a DVD player to watch one of the
infinitely many DVDs they have aboard.
And I have to admit, there could be a
delay when you use the TGV to travel.
But what is ten minutes if you realise
that you only spent two hours - and ten
minutes of delay - to travel more than
four hundred kilometres without being
stressed?
So, dear reader, if Mr Schumacher
announces an internship in Paris offered
by CAAM during one of his lectures, I
would say: go for it! As Hemingway
told a friend in 1950: “If you are lucky
enough to have lived in Paris as a young
man, then wherever you go for the rest
of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is
a moveable feast.” |
1. It should be noted however that the sample size of
bakeries that were tested was not representatively large.
25
SS E T all o v e r the place
living in lodges
It was a chilly Monday evening when, cycling past a small park in the middle of nowhere, Tess and I stumbled
upon a cosy little cottage. Cold and hungry, we decided to try our chances and knocked on the wooden door,
to find it opened by a friendly looking youngster, who introduced himself as Mathijs. Seeing our frozen ears,
he warmly invited us in, as the smell of a freshly cooked meal wafted from inside.
Unfortunately, that was not how it happened,
though it was quite a chilly evening and we
did cycle past a small park. Coincidentally, this
small park is where Mathijs lives, along with
five house mates, most of whom happen to be
active members of Asset. It also just so happens
that another econometrics student lives here:
Kamiel, first year, who agreed to have his
residence invaded by two nosy reporters.
Name:
Mathijs Jansen
Begin studies:
2004
Age:
23
Address:
Wilhelminapark 44
Room surface:
12 m 2
Monthly rent:
190 euros
Small but cosy
We are led up the stairs to the actual ‘house’,
where the smell of food indeed drifts into
our nose, and where we find some of Mathijs’
house mates: Paul and Kamiel. Kamiel is busily
preparing tonight’s meal, whereas Paul is
making himself useful by ‘assisting’, or: stirring.
Shortly after we arrived, another house mate
enters: Janneke. As the three of them do the
cooking Mathijs leads us to his room. “I have
lived here from the beginning of my studies,
back in 2004. Although the room is not that
big or special, I have never considered moving
to another one, as my house mates are nice.
Plus I have my own balcony,” is what he says,
while gesturing at the window. “When another
house mate, Ewout, moves out, Paul will get
his room, which is a lot bigger than the one he
lives in nowadays. New house mates start off
in the smallest room and move up as others
go. I do not have any plans of moving out of
my room though, as Paul’s room is not bigger
than this one.” We note the volleyball lying on
the floor and are subtly reprimanded. “I play
beach volleyball, which I started this year, and
I have played volleyball since I was only a child.
That one is a beach volleyball though.”
We return to the kitchen, where Kamiel shrugs
before leading us to his room, which is right
next door. “As you can tell there is not that
much space,” he says when Tess accidentally
knocks the door against his desk, while trying
to open it further, “but it can fit all of my things,
although all of my clothes are in baskets under
my bed. This was the second room I applied for,
and I was quite happy when I found out they
had accepted me. When Ewout moves out (we
start wondering who this might be), I may get
a bigger room, but I do not mind having this
one. Besides, I go home every weekend to play
football there.” Next to playing football Kamiel
enjoys running and cycling, though the latter
is only done when the weather is good. Back
in the kitchen all house mates agree that,
although the neighbourhood is not ideal,
it does not bother them and it is quite wellsituated: not too far from both the city centre
and the university.
Cooking and cleaning
While we enjoy our pasta, Mathijs explains
their system of cooking and cleaning. “We eat
together most of the time. There is a schedule
on the door where you can ‘sign up’ for dinner,
so that we know how many people will join.”
As for who is supposed to cook, that does not
become very clear. Kamiel: “Today is actually
the first time I had to cook, I usually join them
for dinner.” They cook pasta most days, but it is
not their favourite dish. Actually, Mathijs once
prepared a vegetarian meal, which everyone
thought was the most delicious dish they had
ever had. Paul adds that it would have been
better if there had been some meat, which
he had added himself afterwards. Suddenly
Paul raises his voice and both Mathijs and he
look at Janneke slyly. “Say Janneke, there is
something we ought to ask you. How come
our bathroom was not cleaned last Monday?”
Janneke looks up a bit disdained and explains
to their two quite confused guests: “We have a
cleaning schedule: every week someone has to
clean a part of the house, such as the kitchen
or the bathroom. As I was busy all weekend
and did not have the time and spirit to clean
the bathroom this Monday, I postponed it till
Tuesday. I do not care about the fine, because
26
I have a good excuse.” When one of the house
mates fails to do his or her cleaning before
Tuesday, he or she has to pay a fine of five
euros to the others, which comes down to
paying one euro of rent less for the others.
It does not happen very often that someone
does not finish in time, so the system works
fine.
Ewout
So who is Ewout? “Ewout is one of our house
mates, who occupies the biggest room here,
the original living room. Unfortunately Ewout
worked for the last two years and is either
too lazy to find another room, despite our
urging him, or he says he cannot, because
he is not sure whether he likes his work and
that it would be a bad idea to move right now.
Sometimes we pester him about it, and every
now and then we cross the line and he locks
himself in his room, angry, but the next time
we give it another try. Paul made a deal with
him, in order to have him move out before
January, but something tells us that this is
not going to work. He will not be here tonight
though.”
Compliment sandwich
Suddenly another roommate pops in: Atse.
He just came back from rowing at TSR Vidar.
The conversation turns to house mates. “The
Mathijs, Kamiel and their house mates
best thing about Mathijs? He has this habit
of listening to… what is it called again? Oh,
heavy metal. And somehow you cannot listen
to that without turning up the volume, and
not just a notch.” Kamiel seems to be more
quiet, spending most of his days inside his
room, although his house mates claim he does
not spend his time studying. “I do not dislike
my course, but it is quite tough.” He never
asks Mathijs for help either. And a ‘bad’ habit
of Kamiel: “He keeps calling university ‘school’
and other things like that, we really do have to
help him get rid of that habit. We have a strict
policy of separating ‘school’ and university
here.” An idea pops up: “Oh, perhaps we
should do one of those things where you have
to write down two good and bad traits of your
house mates.” Mathijs: “Like a ‘compliment
sandwich’ you mean?” Atse demonstrates
the compliment sandwich to us, which is
like stuffing a mean comment between two
compliments, literally. “Hey Kamiel, your hair
looks nice today! You cannot cook to save your
life, but you are wearing a very nice sweater.”
Then again, it is the first time he is cooking.
Although they rarely go out together, they do
have at least one thing in common. “We all love
South Park!” is what they shout in common,
ignoring Kamiel’s disapproving headshaking.
And then the random quotes from this popular
TV series start flying, most of which are not
quite appropriate enough to mention here.
When asked about their favourite episode we
cannot keep up with all the titles they name.
As the clock nears nine Atse mentions that it is
time for South Park and rushes off to his room.
The other house mates look at us guiltily
(except for Kamiel) and after we thanked them
for the nice dinner, to which we hear some
snorting (especially from Atse) we leave, to
the now dark and still cold pavement. |
Name:
Kamiel van Langen
Begin studies:
2009
Age:
18
Address:
Wilhelminapark 44
Room surface:
9 m2
Monthly rent:
177 euros
Text by: Fang Qi Wu
27
ga naar www.gaaan.nu
S t r o o pwafel s and he r o e s
H a r t van B r abantloop
At 05:50 hours my alarm rings. I step out of my bed, but actually I am not awake yet. However, I know I have to get up
and eat something right now. So I go downstairs to the kitchen where the cold does wake me up somewhat. Although
I am not hungry I eat my breakfast and wake up my friend Annick. Half an hour later we are walking towards the
university and ring at Tycho’s place. There we pick up the other heroes: Mathijs, Emy, Whitney, Dennis, Stefan, Frans,
Tycho, Stan, Wilbert, Evelien, Marije, Inge, Harold and not to forget our super heroes: Marleen & Stèphanie.
It was Saturday 26 September and we – members
of Asset | Econometrics – were going to run the
Hart van Brabantloop: a yearly relay of fifteen stages
throughout Brabant.The heroes - including me and
Annick - were the runners and the super heroes
were our drivers of that day. My job was to run
the first stage, which started at 07:30 hours. I was
glad I woke up before six o’ clock in the morning,
because right before the launch I started feeling
very awake. Though it was early, the campus of
Tilburg University was crowded with people, who
were clapping and encouraging us: we were the
first group of runners. The person, who was cycling
with me, was Frans. He was supposed to guide me
through the stage. I guess he did quite a good job.
Yes, guessing, since I prefer running with (loud)
music, so unfortunately I did not hear any of his
stories. The only thing I noticed was that he lifted
his finger saying that I only had one kilometre left
to run (out of the 4.9 kilometres). A few seconds
before 7:53 I finished my stage and my job of that
day was done. As a reward I got a ‘stroopwafel’
(a kind of cookie), since I had been running the
‘stroopwafel’ stage.
Mathijs took over and started his stage towards
Loon op Zand. My stage was finished, but for now
the fun part of the Hart van Brabantloop started:
driving around small places I had never been
before in order to find a ‘wisselpunt’ (the place
where one runner is replaced by another) and
encouraging runners during their last and first
hundred metres. Due to a very precise schedule
made by Harold and Whitney, we were never too
late for the change of runners.
Some of our heroes had to run for quite a while.
The stages of Stefan, Tycho and Frans had a length
of more than eleven kilometres. Some of our ladies
even ran a male stage. One of them, Emy, managed
to leave 79 (male) runners behind her and became
19th on her stage. That may be caused by the
a u d i t ta x a dv i s o r y
fact that the men did not mind running behind
her. Whatever caused it, I want to say: well done,
Emy! Our final runner Harold left 76 competitors
behind and he ran from the Heuvel square in the
city centre to Tilburg University in less than twenty
minutes. If you want to see a list of all the times of
our heroes, you can take a look at the website of
Hart van Brabantloop: www.hartvanbrabantloop.nl.
In total we ran more than 105 kilometres in 8 hours
55 minutes and 28 seconds. It is not as fast as the
team of Mr Einmahl, but I still think we can be
proud of this result! Our heroes and super heroes
were rewarded with French fries in the sun. We had
to wait for the party to get to know the winners of
the relay. To keep us ‘quiet’ while we were waiting
the organisation gave away some free barrels
of beer. Although all of our heroes started the
day very early, there was still enough energy for
‘polonaise’ (a traditional dance from Brabant) and
‘zakken’ (another Dutch dance style) on the music
of Def Rhymz even after midnight.
My conclusion: it was absolutely no punishment to
join the Astrics team for the Hart van Brabantloop.
So who wants to strengthen the team next year? |
Name:
Mirjam Groote
Schaarsberg
Age:
23
Start studies:
2003
Running at the Har t van Brabantloop
29
Board 2009-2010
lte r nati v e s t o ann u itie s
p r actical r epo r t
One out of every five households has some of their pension capital at APG (All Pension Group), so writing a
Master’s thesis about pensions in the Netherlands at this company was a nice opportunity for me to peak
a person derives a certain amount of
utility from a given consumption path:
into the kitchen of the Dutch pension sector. My research considered the optimality of the current Dutch
pension system and the opportunities available to improve the system.
Name:
Kay Mennens
Age:
23
Begin studies:
2004
Three pillars
A Dutch employee can build up his pension
in three pillars. The first pillar is the social
security par t of the pension (AOW ), for
which ever ybody in the Netherlands, who
has worked in his life for some period of
time, is eligible. The second pillar is home
to the occupational pensions, where people
automatically build up pension capital
in a designated pension fund, depending
on their profession. The third pillar holds
the possibility for additional pension
savings, for people who cannot use the
second pillar, for example self employed
individuals, or for those people, who have
a pension gap.
The three pillars all ser ve to provide
the possibility to people to build up a
sufficient pension, so they can have a
financially healthy retirement. The product
used for the pension wealth decumulation
is similar: all three pillars use annuities to
pay the pensions to the retirees. Annuities
are products that pay out a constant
amount of money to the client, conditional
on the life of this client. Advantages of
this product are that people are protected
against the risk of living long and having
a depleted bank account, as well as a
beneficially mor tality credit, resulting
from the insurance-like structure of the
product.
However, the way in which annuities
compensate a retiree for inflation differs
a lot among the three pillars. The first
pillar pensions grow with inflation and
the second pillar pensions do so if the
financial status of the fund - measured by
the coverage ratio - is good enough. In the
third pillar, it is ver y hard to find these socalled real annuities and inflation risk is
therefore hardly covered in this pillar.
Differences in pension capital
Differences among people with similar
pension capital, but different pension buildups become apparent in this way. A self
employed person builds up nominal capital,
whereas a civil servant builds up mostly
real capital. This reflects the need for the
availability of real annuities in the third
pillar, because my study has shown that the
absence of these real annuities can lead to a
welfare loss of approximately 15%.
Furthermore, the use of annuities in pension
decumulation can be questioned. From 1969
research, the conclusion was drawn that
annuities are the best way to decumulate
pension capital. However, this research did
not take into account that people might
want to leave a bequest to their children nor
that they might want to protect themselves
against sudden financial shocks during their
retirement.
An annuity stops paying whenever the
retiree dies, so when all of his money was in
that annuity, there is no money left for his
heirs. Also, when a person depends entirely
on annuity income, a sudden financial
shock, for example a broken car, for which
large expenses have to be made, cuts in the
consumption of the retiree directly, whereas
a person who has a buffer of cash on his bank
account will be able to spread the effect of
the shock over a number of periods.
Alternatives to annuities
These effects might increase the need for
alternatives to annuities and my research
tries to prove this by using a utility based
comparison method. By using this method, it
is possible to see what annuitizing strategy
would be optimal for certain people, given
certain preferences. In utility theory, we
assume that, given certain parameter values,
32
Where u(C) denotes the standard
constant relative risk aversion function
and v(B) denotes a similar notation for
the utility that is gained from leaving
a bequest, p is the probability of
surviving until the next period. Beta
is the factor that discounts future
consumption and gamma is the level
of risk aversion.
Utility levels themselves can only be
ordered, but one cannot value the
difference between two levels as
such. By taking the utility level from
a consumption path, we can come up
with a constant consumption path that
generates an equal utility level. These
certain equivalents, as they are called,
can be compared more easily and the
results of my research are based on
this principle.
The best strategy
In order to see whether 100%
annuitization is indeed the best strategy,
a base case is created. People have very
Figure 1: Relative Certainty Equivalents
of different strategies
Figure 2: Welfare implications with bequest motive taken into consideration
simple preferences, bequest motives are
not present, and the financial market is
simple. There is no inflation and there
are no sudden financial shocks.
In figure 1, the welfare implications
can be seen. The blue line indicates
the reference level, which is set for the
strategy of 100% annuitizing. The xaxis displays the amount of money that
a retiree annuitizes. If less than 100%
of the money is annuitized, the rest of
the money is consumed at a rate of 5%
of the remaining capital every year. We
see that 100% annuitizing is optimal
and annuitizing less leads to a welfare
loss that can be as large as 34% when
the money is not annuitized at all.
If a bequest motive is added to the
preferences of the retiree, the results
change. In figure 2, we see that 100%
annuitizing is no longer optimal,
as a retiree will benefit from taking
a capital stock of about 20% of his
money in order to be able to leave
money behind in case of death.
Results for the presence of background
risk give us somewhat the same results.
Money in the bank can be used as a
buffer and a financial shock can be
spread over a number of periods such
that 100% annuitization is not the
optimal strategy anymore.
Conclusion
Concluding, we can say that the Dutch
mandatory annuitization is not a bad
thing, since people are protected
against the risk of living long as well
as from making wrong decisions with
their money. Besides, in many defined
contribution schemes, people annuitize
a far too small portion of their money.
Furthermore, there is a nice mortality
credit in an annuity, so people who
survive benefit from the early death of
other retirees. However, adding some
flexibility in the pension can lead to
more optimal strategies for consuming
pension capital and hence lead to
more welfare for the retiree, which is of
interest to both the pension providers
and the retirees themselves. |
33
n e x t r eme v al u e f r o m
a b r o ad
T he teache r
Jonathan B. Hill is a visiting teacher from North Carolina. During his stay at Tilburg University, he teaches
the first half of Econometric Methods and Research Methods. Let us find out how someone from the United
States of America has become interested in econometrics and teaching.
Name:
Jonathan B. Hill
Position:
Assistant Professor
Youth
Jonathan was born in November 1965 in
Colorado. There he entered the Sociology
programme at the University of Colorado. When
he had completed this programme he felt like
he needed more, so he decided to start with
a second master. After completing a master
in Anthropology, it now felt like he needed
much more, so he finally entered the road to
become an econometrician and he did a major
in Economics. During his studies he did some
things within several student associations, but
these group activities were limited as he was a
bit shy in his younger years and often preferred
to do things on his own. Therefore, he never
did an internship as it required a lot more self
confidence and those internships were often
done by more aggressive students. When he
was young, he planned to work in social service.
Besides that he just tried to abide by his fathers’
philosophies: “Tell the truth, be clean and do well
in school.”
Career
As Jonathan always wanted to be busy, his
working days started quite early. Ever since
he was twelve years old, he has had numerous
jobs. He estimates the total number of jobs
to be around seventy, starting with common
things like working in a cafeteria, cleaning and
tutoring. Later he also did social work, he worked
in a juvenile jail and he even spent some time in
Coors, a beer factory. He has not seen this brand
in The Netherlands yet and he assures us that
this is quite fortunate as it is terrible beer. When
he was 25 years old and had finished his major
in Economics, he decided to travel to Nicaragua,
Spain, Germany and several other places outside
the United States to learn about life and all its
aspects, you would not learn at the university.
He notices that students in the US are not very
mature, as opposed to those in Europe. That is
why students from the US often require an extra
buffer after their studies in which they can learn
how to live their lives. He definitely needed such
an experience himself. When he was in those
places he worked to pay for his next trip and this
phase lasted for about five years. Afterwards, he
went back to graduate school, but he had already
developed some pretty strong philosophies and
did not want to listen to some of his professors.
As he got bored pretty fast, he started looking
into extreme value theories. Jonathan: “I did not
know what it was and I did not understand the
language so it made me learn.”
The past years he has worked as a teacher at
universities all over the world. He has worked
in Nicaragua, for example, and in Beijing where
he met his wife. Nowadays he has a contract at
the University of North Carolina, which allows
him to do whatever he wants for one semester
without getting fired, including teaching at
Tilburg University. Besides teaching, he never
had the desire to find a job on an academic level.
“If you work for the government, especially in
the US, there is a very deep agenda. And if you
work for a company there is profiteering. You
have to satisfy client wishes.” And on top of
this, if you work for a company there is often no
interaction with employees of other companies
at all. “In academia you come together, you share
ideas and blend them to get the best possible
outcome.” He really likes this.
Working day
When we ask him about his current life as a
teacher and researcher, he says that he works
about eighty hours a week. However, he does
very little work in the office as he cannot
concentrate there. He and his wife just like
to go to a café with their laptop and do some
research there, whilst most of his colleagues are
the exact opposite. Back home they even go
to different pubs when they work at the same
time, which most people do not understand.
On an average working day, he goes to a café
and visits the university if required, then takes a
34
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Nekst x
1 - Maand
November
jaar
2009
35
Johan van Arkel, PGGM
m a r b le s and china
f r eshmen activity
Calculator
of innovator?
On Thursday 17 September the first freshmen activity of this academic year took place with the traditional
dinner at Café Jack’s. Due to several activities for freshmen in that same week like the After TIK and a free
barrel of beer for the winning team of the MAK-camp, the number of participating students was a bit low.
However, the expression ‘The more the merrier’ does not always hold, since this activity was a great success!
Stagiair
Junior actuarieel medewerker
In de sector zorg en welzijn is PGGM een financiële dienstverlener
De toonaangevende afdeling Actuariaat & Asset Liability
van formaat. Kijk maar naar de cijfers: we beheren de pensioenen
Management van PGGM bestaat uit 25 professionals. Jonge
van meer dan twee miljoen klanten en we beleggen negentig
mensen, die advies uitbrengen over de meest uiteenlopende
miljard euro wereldwijd. En dan hebben we het nog niet eens
kwesties. Wat wordt bijvoorbeeld ons financiële beleid? Hoe
over de aanvullende producten die we ontwikkelen. Kortom,
‘houdbaar’ is een pensioencontract? Wat is de beste methode
typisch een organisatie waar ambitieuze vernieuwers zich
van verslaglegging en welk verzekeringsproduct heeft echt
kunnen uitleven. Zeker als je op zoek bent naar een uitdaging
toegevoegde waarde? Maar ook: wat moet de invloed van het
in het actuariaat. Heb je er de inhoud voor, dan wacht je een
solidariteitsprincipe zijn? Al met al heb je tal van mogelijkheden.
prachtige carrière op het snijvlak van zakelijk en maatschappelijk
Je kunt beginnen met een (afstudeer)stage. Of je kiest gelijk
belang. Inclusief een aantrekkelijk salaris, interessante oplei-
voor de functie van junior actuarieel medewerker. In beide
dingen en een prettige balans tussen werk en privé. Klinkt goed?
gevallen doe je snel een schat aan kennis en ervaring op.
Klopt. Lees meer over je kansen op www.pggm.nl/werkenbij
En je krijgt alle ruimte voor initiatief. Dus: ben je bijna of
net klaar met je studie actuariaat, wiskunde of econometrie?
Bel (030) 277 85 43 voor meer informatie. Direct solliciteren is natuurlijk ook een optie. Stuur je reactie met cv naar
PGGM, Human Resources, t.a.v. Martine Gersen, Postbus
117, 3700 AC Zeist, of per mail naar [email protected].
www.pggm.nl/werkenbij
Around half past seven, we all gathered at
Café Jack’s in the city centre of Tilburg to start
with a nice drink.When the participants were
present, it was time to choose our meals!
There were a lot of possibilities, differing
from a fish dish to chicken with sauce or a
mixed grill. Plates with the chosen dishes
and bowls filled with chips were served. I had
chosen the chicken with sauce, which was
decorated with a salad on the side. Some of
us ordered coffee or tea afterwards. When
everyone’s stomach was filled, I gave a short
speech to thank the group for coming to
this first freshmen activity and to announce
that is was now time to play the games.
The bartender at Café Jack’s had already
prepared the games and everybody
randomly chose a game. Enthusiastically, I
started to play the marble game with Chris,
Fang Qi, Febi and Dumebi. This game was a
bit like the game table shuffleboard (Dutch:
sjoelen), which is a game where you have
to shove wooden discs over a table into
compartments and in that way you can
receive different amounts of points. But
instead of shoving discs you have to role
marbles over a table. The trick was not to
push the marbles too hard, because then
they do not get in the compartments and
you would receive zero points. After a few
games, the five of us got some skills and
wanted to play some other games.
Next to the marble game,you could also play
regular table shuffleboard. Furthermore,
the famous student game ‘Stef the Stunt
Pilot’, ‘Photoplay’ and also ‘Cow Trade’
were present. At the game ‘Stef the Stunt
Pilot’, the team Van Heijst – Alkema (which
consisted of our chairman Harold van Heijst
and freshman Geert Alkema) defeated a lot
of other teams. All freshmen and also the
board of Asset | Econometrics enjoyed
playing the aforementioned games.
Around half past ten it was time for us to go
to the kick-off party of Faculty Association
Asset! So with the cheerful spirit we had,
caused by the nice games, we went to Café
Bolle. The theme of this party was ‘Asset:
the world turns’. Our association Asset |
Econometrics was dressed up like people
from the country China. We characterised
ourselves with the familiar Chinese hats
which Geert, Anouk and I made in the
afternoon that day. At Café Bolle many other
members of Asset | Econometrics joined
the freshmen and the board at the party.
As a special act, Asset had arranged for the
band of student association Plato called
‘Rolls Royals’. All people present danced to
the familiar songs the band played. As I was
coordinator of the photo camera, I made
some nice and also some crazy pictures
of our members, which can be viewed on
our website. The party lasted until the early
hours of the Friday that followed.
Alltogether, I had a great evening. Playing
games made us each other’s opponents
for a few hours, because we all wanted
to get the highest score. However, at the
Asset kick-off party, the freshmen, the
board and many other members of Asset
| Econometrics became one large group of
Chinese students! I am sure that the next
freshmen activity will be a great one as
well. |
Text by: Whitney Pattinaja
All dressed up like Chinese people
37
oard to board
special
On Tuesday 8 September the new board of Asset | Econometrics was chosen during the General Members
Meeting. For the board members of 2008-2009 this was the time to say goodbye to their positions on the
board and their places in the Astrics room. Are you curious to know their experiences of last year and what
they have learned from each other?
Last year, the board members worked
very hard to run the association and as
the members of Asset | Econometrics
were able to see, they did very well! They
organised a lot of nice and interesting
activities with the help of many active
members. The faculty association Asset
was new and it was the first year the
official language of the association
was English. Furthermore, all members
had to habituate to the new name
Asset | Econometrics. These were quite
a few challenges for the former board.
What are you most proud of?
As a chairman, Marije had many
meetings with the other chairmen
of the Asset associations about the
faculty association. During the year
these meetings were not always very
easy, but in the end she is proud of the
progress they have made with Asset.
Mathijs was the coordinator of the
lustrum committee. This committee
worked very hard to organise a
successful lustrum week. Because this
was not a standard activity, there was
no standard set-up and they had a lot
of freedom in choosing the activities
they wanted to organise for this week.
He is also proud of the fact that the
traditions of the association were
maintained. Emile is proud of the fact
that in spite of the establishment of
the faculty association the identity of
Asset | Econometrics was maintained.
Stefan thinks about the bad financial
times and is proud that in spite of some
funding problems the association
managed to organise all activities that
were planned. Last year, Linda was the
coordinator of the active members and
she has seen many (new) enthusiastic
active members who have developed
themselves during the year. There
is a nice sphere among the (active)
members which she likes very much.
drinking a couple of beers with friends
in the city, which sometimes resulted
in funny moments. During one night
she sent an email to the symposium
committee which was not really her
intention. Emile tells a story about
the après-ski party where they were
wearing appropriate clothes. Another
visitor of the pub told him that he
looked like a goblin in those clothes.
What was your most embarrassing
moment?
Linda thinks about the second General
Members Meeting. There were not
many members because it was a busy
period for most students. Marije liked
Stefan had an embarrassing moment
during a company visit. He thought he
saw the recruiter, but that person was
the CEO of the company!
Are there any aspects of being a
board member you miss very much?
The whole board misses the nice
moments at the Astrics room and the
long mail conversations. They also tell
about their board meetings during
which they had dinner and the sportive
moments in the corridor during which
they played volleyball or football. And
of course they miss Linda’s jokes and
Ria, the cleaning woman.
What would you like to do differently?
Marije had a period in which she did
not have a good balance between
serious tasks and parties. If she could
do it again then she wants to change
that. Emile was coordinator of the
Active Members Weekend which he
underestimated. Mathijs had the same
problem with the lustrum, which cost
more time than he thought beforehand.
Linda thinks about the first edition of
Nekst, the deadline was very soon and
during that period the editor-in-chief
and even his predecessors were in
New York with the Business Research
Programme. Since Linda had to do
almost all final work, this was a very
stressful period for her. For Stefan it
was a pity that in spite of all work of the
BRP committee, which he coordinated,
the trip did not take place.
Nonetheless, they all enjoyed being a
board member and they are glad that
they chose to be on the board last
year. They wish the new board good
luck for the upcoming year and they
will certainly visit some activities this
year. |
Text by: Anouk Rennen
Choices
Mint tea
or Sauce
of Linda’s
mother
Cleaning
woman Ria
or house
manager
Ton
Shredder or
label maker
Mint tea
Mint tea
Mint tea
Sauce of
Sauce of
Linda’s mother Linda’s mother
Can you
describe your
neighbour?
Ria
Ria
Ria
Ria
Ria
Shredder
Label maker
Shredder
Shredder
Shredder
E109 and E110
E109
.
Room E109,
E110 or
E123
Meeting or
lecture
E123
E110
E110
Do you
have any
addictions?
What website
do you visit the
most?
Meeting
Being first
on the
Leaving last
Astrics room
or leaving
last
Meeting
Meeting
Meeting
Meeting
Being first
Leaving last
Being first
Leaving last
38
About Linda:
About Mathijs:
Simple of mind,
Repairs
hard worker,
everything, dry
open for
humour, sharp of
everybody,
mind, consistent
offbeat humour
About Stefan:
Enthusiastic
about activities
and approaching
companies
About Emile:
Specialised in layout and design,
perfectionist
About Marije:
Leader of the
board, social and
diplomatic person
Toasties and mint
tea
Mint tea
Festivals
Sauce of Linda’s
mother
Chocolate milk
Gmail
3FM
Dumpert
Youtube
Dumpert
What will your About Linda:
neighbour be Job in Finance,
doing in about she is coach of a
ten years?
volleyball team.
About Mathijs:
About Stefan:
About Emile:
About Marije:
Optimising
Full time risk
Works a lot, but not Council of Advice,
train schedules,
manager with
in the morning. He is she works two
executive in a enough spare time pilot of a sailplane. days a week and
small company.
for his family.
travels a lot.
39
lwa y s keep y o u r e y e s o pen
B usiness I nte r view C B S
For this interview, we took the train, the RandstadRail shuttle and a short walk over a pedestrian bridge to
arrive at our final destination: the beautiful new building of the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS,
Statistics Netherlands) in The Hague. After receiving our access cards, we entered the building through
sliding glass doors (the so-called goldfish bowl). I was curious about the person we were going to interview,
Frans Hendrikx (59) and what he could tell us about the CBS.
Name:
Frans Hendrikx
CBS
Statistics Netherlands was founded in 1899
and had only five employees at that time.
In the course of time it has become a fullblown organisation. At this moment the CBS
has offices in The Hague and Heerlen and the
number of employees is approximately 2500.
The organisation is responsible for collecting
and processing data with the aim of publishing
statistics that can be used in practice, for
scientific purposes and for policy-making.
Besides being responsible for the official
statistics of the Netherlands, the CBS also
supplies statistics to Eurostat. These statistics
contribute to the development of European
statistics.
Age:
59
At Statistic Netherlands, Frans Hendrikx is
CEO of the Central Departments at Statistics
Netherlands.These departments are responsible
for Human Resource, Finance, Operational
Function:
Management and Facility Services. Frans
explains that where the CBS measures what has
CEO of the Central
happened in the past, the Netherlands Bureau
Departments at
for Economic Policy Analysis (in Dutch the
Statistics Netherlands Centraal Planbureau (CPB)) forecasts the future.
That is why the tasks of the CBS should not be
Study and career
Long before he started working for the CBS, Frans
Hendrikx wanted to be a structural engineer.
But electrical engineering also appealed to
him, and he started this study in Eindhoven.
Unfortunately, electrical engineering turned
out to be less practice oriented than he
thought. After hearing enthusiastic stories from
some friends about econometrics, he switched
to this study in Tilburg. One of the things
he liked most about econometrics was the
combination of economics with mathematics.
Some of the mathematics courses in his first
year as an econometrician resembled the
courses in Eindhoven because the lecturer in
Tilburg used the same syllabus Frans had used
in Eindhoven.
After his graduation, Frans worked for several
companies before applying for a job at the
CBS. His first position at the CBS was in the
management of a team working on traffic
statistics. He tells us: “I soon found out that you
can do a lot of different things at the CBS”. After
his management function in traffic statistics,
he had various management positions in a
“ I t c ou l d be interesting for young
pe ople to star t here...”
confused with the tasks of CPB. However, there
is one exception where Statistic Netherlands
does make predictions, namely in the field of
demography. Forecasts in this field are used to
predict possible demographic developments
per region, and numbers of immigrants and
households.
number of different areas. He first switched
to international trade and then to business
economics statistics.
There is a wide range of working areas at Statistic
Netherlands. Surveys and research span a great
variety of social and economic topics, which
40
makes it possible to do many different
things. For each topic, the CBS conducts
many statistical surveys and publishes
their results in a number of different
ways. In addition to traffic, transport and
international trade, it is also possible to
work in the field of education, financial
and business services, government and
politics, or nature and the environment.
Responsibility and flexibility
Frans Hendrikx did not primarily choose
to work for the CBS because of the
media attention for their publications.
However, he does mention to us: “It
could be interesting for young people
to start here, because short-term results
of their own work are visible to a wide
audience as they are published on the
CBS website and have, if newsworthy,
repercussions in the media.”
CBS publications can also influence
political debate, negotiations or parties.
Frans: “A few years ago we published
adjusted figures for the Consumer Price
Index (CPI), which measures inflation.
This happened at the very same time the
labour unions were negotiating a new
collective labour agreement (in Dutch
CAO).” Obviously, one of the negotiating
partners was not amused with these
new figures. But because we have a
fixed publishing schedule, we could not
be accused of intentionally influencing
the negotiations of the labour unions.
At Statistics Netherlands, Frans Hendrikx’
responsibilities now include Finance
and Operational Management, which
comprises planning and realisation.
He is also in charge of the Human
Resources Department and General and
Technical Services. His workplace is not
always the same, since he works at the
office in Heerlen for a few days in the
week and at the office in The Hague on
the other days. Also, his working hours
differ from time to time. Sometimes he
has to work in the evening, for example
for deliberating with the labour unions.
However, Frans can fit his hours to his
own needs, so working at different times
is not a real problem for him. He can even
work from home, as teleworking makes
it possible to access all his data from his
home PC. Having this opportunity does
not mean that Frans always works at
home. On the contrary: most of the time
he has to communicate with people, so
he is at the office a lot. And it is not only
Frans who has the opportunity to work
from home, the rest of the staff also have
this option. Young people often like this,
because it makes their working hours
more flexible. Frans explains: “University
graduates are scarce compared with
the number of jobs available, although
this is currently camouflaged by the
credit crunch. Because of this scarcity
of high educated workers on the labour
market, the CBS has to take care of its
capacity of high educated employees.
Giving the employees the opportunity
to work at home, makes working at CBS
more attractive for them. In this way,
employees can combine their work and
private life optimally.”
New employees
The CBS is experiencing a lot of changes.
Since the organisation has many older
employees who will retire in the next
ten to fifteen years, the CBS will need
new workers. It is therefore looking
for university graduates, and possibly
graduates from colleges for Higher
Vocational Education (hbo). In addition to
this change, the way the CBS collects its
information has also changed. Statistics
Netherlands used to collect data directly
from companies and administration
offices via formal surveys. But now it is
increasingly using secondary resources
like ‘UWV WERKbedrijf’ (department
of employment) and ‘Belastingdienst’
(Dutch Tax Administration). To link and
analyse all these data, the CBS needs
highly educated people. At the same
time, the demand for lower educated
people is decreasing.
Atmosphere
When we ask Frans about the atmosphere
at the CBS, he smiles and says: “Well,
of course we have a good atmosphere
here.” Without losing that smile, he
tells us enthusiastically why there is
such a good atmosphere: “We have a
staff association that organises various
activities every month.” Alongside the
association for the whole staff, the CBS
also has a club for younger employees;
they organise trips to foreign statistical
bureaus once or twice a year.
Sometimes people ask about career
opportunities at the CBS. Frans: “If you
want to have an upward career, you have
to be visible. Participate in projects that
are bigger than your own organisation,
participate in a project outside
your own department, for example.
Furthermore you also need good social
skills.” New employees are screened for
management skills after a short period
of time. People with these skills will
be given the opportunity to train and
prepare for management positions.
Frans indicates that most people who
do these management courses do them
because they took the initiative to do
them.
Tip
A tip for starting econometricians from
Frans: “Always keep your eyes open, even
if you have found a job you think is good
at that time. Your first job will probably be
a good start, but it may not be what you
expected. It is often possible to switch
jobs within an organisation. The CBS is
an organisation where this is possible, as
long as you take the initiative.“
Our last question to Frans: “Would you
make the same decisions if you had the
opportunity to live your life again? He
answers that he would certainly study
econometrics again. He has worked for
the CBS for quite a time now, and in the
course of this period has held many
different positions. If he was young now,
he would probably work for a number
of different companies. However, Frans
Hendrikx is very satisfied with everything
he has done so far. |
Text by: Tess Beukers
41
W ill T il b u r g o b tain the c u p
a g ain thi s y ea r ?
N AT I O N A L E C O N O M E T R I C I A N S F O O T B A L L T O U R N A M E N T
Many econometricians have been looking forward to 22 September 2009.On this date the National Econometricians
Football Tournament (NEFT) would take place,which was organised by our fellow econometricians from Rotterdam
this year. On this day it would be determined who will be the new holder of the high-valued NEFT cup. Will it go to
Tilburg again or would another city manage to obtain it this year?
When we arrived at the Excelsior Stadium in
Rotterdam, we noticed that the attendance of
Tilburg was quite high compared to that of the
other cities, so it was not hard to feel at ease with
all those fellow students. Every city was appointed a
particular colour and our colour was pink, which of
course would be the colour we would have chosen
ourselves. There were approximately 25 teams from
six different universities (Groningen, Amsterdam
(UvA and VU), Rotterdam, Tilburg and Maastricht) of
which there were seven teams dressed in pink.
So the preparations were made and the tournament
could begin. As econometricians from Tilburg,
people are expecting a lot of us as it comes to
football. History tells that a football team from
Tilburg wins the cup almost every year. After a few
games were played, some players noticed that
the other teams were much better this year than
previous years. So winning the cup would not be
easy. Of course the members of Astrics did not let
themselves to be intimidated and spared no effort
in an attempt to reach the next round.
Je kunt een land pas besturen als je de economische cijfers kent.
De Nederlandse economie krimpt, in het tweede kwartaal van
horeca en aan vliegreizen. Tegelijkertijd zijn de spaartegoeden
2009 met 5,1 procent. Onze uitvoer van goederen daalt in die periode
toegenomen. Een deel van de werkgelegenheid wordt in stand
met zo’n 11 procent en er vinden veel minder investeringen plaats
gehouden door de deeltijd WW, het aantal vacatures is in het
in machines, bedrijfsauto’s en huizenbouw. De huizenverkoop
tweede kwartaal met 25.000 fors afgenomen. Deze en talloze
loopt in het tweede kwartaal terug met 37 procent en de
andere cijfers en feiten worden geleverd door het CBS. Een enorme
bestedingen van huishoudens zijn afgenomen met 2,6 procent.
hoeveelheid cijfers is onze grondstof, waardevolle en betrouwbare
Bij de aanschaf van nieuwe personenauto’s is een terugval te zien
informatie ons eindproduct. Op basis hiervan worden door de
van zelfs 29 procent. Daarentegen is het aantal hybride auto’s
overheid en het bedrijfsleven belangrijke beslissingen genomen.
in particulier bezit verdubbeld. Driekwart van de hybride auto’s
Bijna dagelijks verschijnt er informatie van het CBS in de media.
staan op naam van 50-plussers. Uit onze onderzoeken blijkt
Onze medewerkers rapporteren niet alleen over de Nederlandse
tevens dat we circa 10 procent minder uitgeven aan elektronica,
economie, maar ook over de internationale handel, de volks-
zoals tv-toestellen, foto- en filmcamera’s en aan meubels en andere
gezondheid, de verkeersveiligheid, de bevolking en het onderwijs.
woninginrichting. De consument geeft ook minder geld uit in de
Kijk voor onze vacatures op www.werkenbijhetcbs.nl
Around 13.00 hours several players were getting
hungry, since they scored many goals. Of course the
organisation had foreseen this and they announced
that every player could pick up a lunch bag. After
some delicious sandwiches, a nutritious banana
and a refreshing sports drink, everyone was ready
to resume the tournament.
After the lunch, people were starting to calculate
their odds to make it to the next round. The teams
were divided into four leagues of six or seven teams.
Only the teams that earned the first place in their
league would proceed to the next round, which
were the semi-finals. The many spectators noticed
that the duels between the teams were getting
more intense now. Fortunately this fact did not lead
to any accidents on the football fields. Everybody
was in an extremely good mood and the teams
which saw their chances for the semi-finals go to
zero, started to order some beers.
When all the matches were played, the organisation
announced which teams would go to the semifinals. Sadly no team from Tilburg was announced.
However, there was one team from Tilburg that
managed to keep the glory high, namely Tempo
Team. With four wins and two draws they collected
fourteen points. Unfortunately there was also a team
from Amsterdam in their league which collected
fifteen points. Although they did not make it to
the semi-finals, remaining unbeaten during the six
matches can be called quite an accomplishment for
Tempo Team. Bravo for the brave econometricians
of Tempo Team!
During the semi-finals the bar was getting more
and more crowded. If there were people who felt
sad about their elimination, this feeling would not
last long. A cold beer would soon flush these bad
feelings away. After the finals everyone hit the
showers and prepared themselves for dinner. Which
team had exactly won the final? Most people could
not tell. Some said it was a team from Rotterdam.
After dinner some students went home, but the real
party people continued the event at a bar named
Rotjeknor. Again our fellow econometricians from
Rotterdam had arranged everything very well. From
the terrace of the bar everyone had a nice view on
the impressive skyline of Rotterdam.
Name:
Dennie van den Biggelaar
Age:
25
Begin studies:
2008
Inside the bar the arrangements were even better:
free beers for all econometricians! After several
beers were consumed, we had to leave in order to
take the last train to Tilburg. During the trip back to
Tilburg someone suddenly took the cup out of his
bag. Some students from Tilburg managed to obtain
it from the cup winners during the after party at the
bar. It was obvious that the econometricians from
Rotterdam were not familiar with winning cups: it
takes skill to win a cup, but it takes experience to
hold on to it a whole year! With the cup in Tilburg, we
can all look forward to the NEFT 2010. Many thanks
to the organisation: it was a very nice event! |
43
u me r u s cla u s u s at til b u r g
u ni v e r s it y
W h y ha s life e x pectanc y
inc r ea s ed ?
opinion poll
column
As I walk through Prisma building, I see a student listening to his lecturer in the doorway. Not because this student is
I would like to start this column by introducing myself, because many readers of Nekst do probably not know
about to leave, but simply because the room is so full that it is impossible to fit in a chair. It turns out that universities in
me. My name is Martin Salm and since autumn 2008 I work as an Assistant Professor at the department of
The Netherlands had 25% more applications this year. 1 As it is inevitable that it will get too crowded if this trend continues,
Econometrics and OR. My research interests are in empirical health economics, which means that I spend a lot
several econometricians have been asked if they think it is time for action and what they would recommend for the future.
of time thinking about gloomy subjects such as mortality, heart attacks, job loss and sick children.
Fang Qi Wu (Freshman)
Tilburg University should not introduce a numerus clausus
in my opinion. For one, a numerus clausus means that not
everyone who is interested in a certain course will get the
chance to see if that is truly of their interest. Take a look
at the Medicine programme. Thousands of students are
disappointed every year, simply because they cannot fulfill
their dream, which sometimes is a lifelong one. If they had
been given the chance to, they would have been able to
determine whether this programme is really what they have
always wanted. If not, they can simply quit. I do realise the
government wants to reduce the number of quitting students,
because of the expenses, but that does not mean one should
simply refuse these students. Apart from that, the means of
choosing the lucky students is not always that fair, so I would
rather see the numerus clausus not implemented at all. And
finally, our campus is not that crowded yet, or is it?
In my first column I want to write about a
more uplifting topic, namely the increase in
life expectancy. During the past two centuries
life expectancy at birth in Western Europe has
more than doubled. Whereas life expectancy at
birth around 1800 in England for example was
a mere 36 years (averaged over both sexes), it
was 76 years in 1990 and has since then further
increased. What can explain this increase in life
expectancy?
Nienke Vugts (Second year student)
Tilburg University should not introduce a numerus clausus,
because in the Netherlands it is a positive right to be able
to study and it should stay that way. Of course, the number
of people at any university should not affect the quality of
education, so it might be a good idea to come up with some
admission regulations. As a consequence, less (unmotivated)
people will be admitted, because they would be forced to
think twice about what and where they want to study. As a
result, there will be fewer students at the university. However,
everyone who is motivated and competent should be able to
study whatever he or she wants. When you just put a limit
on the number of people that can go to a university, you
restrict them in their right to education and that is not a
good development. I believe that more and higher educated
people will help the economy and maybe even the world to
improve.
Twan Burg ( Third year student)
Tilburg University should not introduce a numerus clausus,
as it restricts the freedom of choice of the students who are
looking for a study programme. Young people already have a
big task finding the right programme and it is very annoying
for them if they also have to face a numerus clausus. If
there is a good reason to introduce the numerus clausus,
for instance when it gets too crowded, I think it is the best
to select students on quality and not to select students by
means of a random generator just a few weeks before the
year starts, for example based on their grades of high school.
Actually, I think it would be most fair to let students do a test
which contains elements of the study programme, so that
the students can show their skills and talent. As this leads
to a lot of extra effort, I would avoid introducing a numerus
clausus.
Dr R. Sotirov (Associate professor)
In the last decade, European universities reported an
increasing number of students. According to the annual
report of 2008, Tilburg University attracted twelve percent
more students than in the previous year. What do you expect
to see in the annual report of 2009? If this increasing trend
continues, I believe that Tilburg University is going to be
forced to limit the number of students. This restriction will
be required due to the space limitation dictated by the
current campus infrastructure and the number of lecturers.
It is known that some study directions have a large number
of students and some only a few. Therefore, I think that a
restriction on the amount of students should be done on the
department levels and also with respect to the job market
requirements. |
1. Giebels, K. (2009), Aantal Vooraanmeldingen Gigantisch Gestegen. Vereniging van Universiteiten, Den
Haag. (Website: www.vsnu.nl, 20 Oct. 2009)
44
One explanation that comes to mind are advances
in medical technology. During the past two
centuries medical procedures have progressed
from blood-letting and amputations to open
heart surgery and effective pharmaceuticals. But
advances in medical technology were only one,
and maybe not even one of the most important
reasons for increasing life expectancy. According
to Robert Fogel, a Nobel Prize winning economist
at the University of Chicago, much of the increase
in life expectancy during the past two centuries
can be attributed to better nutrition1.
Two centuries ago, most people not only had
to forego the pleasure of eating bananas and
oranges, but they simply did not get enough
calories. For example, average daily calorie
consumption in France was around 1800 calories
in the year 1800 as compared to almost 3500
calories today. This means that the bottom fifth
of the population ate just enough calories for
sustaining basic body functions, with no energy
left for physical work. Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist
probably spoke for many of his contemporaries
in the middle of the 19th century when he asked
for more food and farmers spent much of the
winter in bed which allowed saving energy.
This does not mean that large proportions of
the population died routinely from hunger. But
malnourishment made people vulnerable to
mortality from infectious diseases, which were a
major cause of mortality in Western Europe well
into the 20th century. In my own research I find
that higher veteran pensions at the beginning of
the 20th centuries, which allowed beneficiaries to
buy more food, reduced mortality from infectious
diseases by half.
However, poor nutrition does not only increase
the immediate danger of dying from infectious
diseases, but might also have important long
term consequences. For example, during the 19th
century the remaining life expectancy at age fifty
was around two years higher for Dutchmen born
during good economic times than for Dutchmen
born during a recession. Thus, children who
have had more favourable circumstances at the
beginning of their life had much lower mortality
rates even at old age. Even today, there is a strong
relationship between height and mortality.
Mortality for tall men can be only half the rate
of mortality for small men. The average height of
Dutch men in 1850 was only around 1.64 metres
and it has since then increased to around 1.84
metres today. This increase in height alone can
account for much of the decrease in mortality
during the past two centuries.
Name:
Martin Salm
Position:
Assistant Professor
But can the importance of better nutrition in
explaining historical mortality trends tell us
anything about the current situation or possible
future trends? In Western countries, lack of calories
has become a rare problem and there is little
room for further improvements. Recent increases
in life expectancy in these countries have been
mostly driven by factors other than food, such
as reductions in mortality from heart diseases.
But lack of food is still common in developing
countries and in these countries improvements
in nutrition might have a large effect on lower
current and future mortality rates.
I personally believe that an improvement in the
quality of food at the Tilburg University cafeteria
could also be an important contribution to further
increases in life expectancy in the Netherlands. |
1. A detailed account of his theories can be found in his book “The escape from
hunger rand premature death, 1700-2100. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
45
etting a step ahead on the road
towards sustainable globalisation
asset inte r national confe r ence
On 23 September 2009, the International Conference of Faculty Association Asset took place at the auditorium
of Tilburg University. This year’s conference theme was ‘Reinventing the World: the road towards a sustainable
globalisation’. The international conference turned out to be a great success as a large audience was present
to hear many prominent speakers shed their light on this issue.
Name:
Eefje Godding
Age:
23
Studies:
Master International
Business
Begin studies:
2004
The process of globalisation has highly
contributed to the world economy. The
augmenting trade as well as the specialisation
among countries has played an important
role in the increase of wealth worldwide.
However, the fragility of the globalisation
process expresses itself in the form of several
negative aspects. As a consequence, not
everybody can benefit from the increasing
wealth. In addition, the already unbalanced
global income distribution has only
become more unstable. Furthermore, the
increased international interdependency
also creates problems. The financial crisis,
for example, has shown that local problems
in a globalising world spread easily to other
regions. These kinds of problems highlight
the importance of international policy
coordination. Globalisation requires an
effective governmental and institutional
framework, which should be able to lead
developments in the right direction. However,
developing such a framework requires
changes and reformations. This is not only a
task for politics, but also for business. In order
to secure future profitability, companies can
no longer ignore the necessity for future
profitability in a globalising world.
To be able to benefit from globalisation in
the future, a sustainable arrangement of the
world economy is required; an international
framework that minimises the number of
losers and, besides that, deals with the
unintended negative consequences of
globalisation. The present generation should
ask itself what opportunities there are for a
sustainable form of globalisation. This is a
relevant question for science in the process
of aiming for an optimal economic world
order. At the same time, this question is
important for politics in order to be able
to act upon the necessity to take on in
worldwide problems and policies. Finally, yet
importantly, companies have an interest to
reach a sustainable globalisation. Not mere
because of the profit opportunities it offers,
but also with regards to the responsibility of
companies towards society.
As we can see, the issue of sustainable
globalisation is one with a certain level
of complications and interdependency of
problems. Therefore, the intentions of the
conference committee were not to change
the world decisively, since this would simply
be impossible. However, the aim we had set
ourselves was to create awareness for the
subject and deliver a contribution to the
public debate. We have tried to achieve this
by organising an international conference,
which looked at the issue from the main
perspectives of science, politics, business and
finance. The plenary morning session of the
conference consisted of lectures from the
perspective of these main domains. Jan Pronk
(President of the Society for International
Development), Peter Bakker (CEO TNT ), John
Paul Broeders (CEO Vopak), Hans Hoogervorst
(President of the Netherlands Authority for
Financial Markets) and Sophie in ‘t Veld (Dutch
Representative in the European Parliament
of D66) provided the audience with a good
insight in the obstacles and necessary
changes by means of inspiring words taken
from their fields of expertise.
At the end of the morning programme, all
the previous named speakers participated
together in an interesting discussion panel.
Under the lead of conference chairman
Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (former Dutch minister
of Economic Affairs), the discussion showed
that it is often very clear what aspects need
to be changed within a particular sector.
However, making sure that the overall
outcome of all domains is one of positive
development, we shall need to make
concessions. In other words, the high level
of interdependency between the sectors is
46
what makes it difficult to find the right
balance. This balance should lead to a
more sustainable world.
One example of the need for such
global cooperation is the recent
meeting of the G20 leaders in
Pittsburgh, where actions were
discussed to assure a sound recovery
from the global economic and financial
crisis. Although our economies may
survive the current recession, the
prospects for neoliberal capitalism are
less optimistic. The credit crunch and
the current economic recession have
shaken the faith of many neoliberal
capitalists.
It has become painfully visible that
neoliberal capitalism does not always
lead to an efficient and optimal
distribution of production factors and
welfare. Neoliberal capitalism is depicted
as the main cause of the financial crisis
and the economic recession. With this
in mind, several questions arose: is
neoliberal capitalism indeed the main
cause of the current recession? To what
extent is neoliberal capitalism still the
economic system of the future and what
are the alternatives? During parallel
session ‘The Future of Capitalism’,
Abram de Swaan (Emeritus University
Professor of Social Science at University
of Amsterdam), Onno Ruding (former
Dutch Minister of Finance) and José Artur
Denot Medeiros (Brazilian Ambassador
in the Netherlands) have tried to review
the system of neoliberal capitalism.
A solution to the problem has not
been found. Nevertheless, they have
concluded that a stable global financial
framework is needed in which everyone
needs to be able to participate. As long
as we keep on focussing on a few major
players in the field, we will be unable to
solve the issue of instability.
When discussing the influential actors
in the globalisation process, most
people think about private or public
parties. Companies are increasingly
active on international markets, while
governments try to increase their impact
by working more and more together
and multilateral organisations such as
the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
also claim a bigger role in the world
economy.
However, the role of another important
actor in the globalisation process is
Prof. Bhagwati, Prof. Brinkhorst and Dr Van Schreven
47
Jij maakt het nieuws
van de dag.
Kom 12 november naar de Studentendag.
Het kan je niet ontgaan zijn: we zitten er
middenin, de media staan er bol van en
vrijwel iedereen heeft er mee te maken.
De kredietcrisis heeft onze economie in
zijn greep en dat moet veranderen.
De minister heeft advies nodig. En snel ook.
Werken bij het Rijk. Als je verder denkt
www.werkenbijhetrijk.nl
Tijdens de Studentendag 2009 sta je oog in oog met de minister en de
staatssecretaris van Financiën. Je werkt aan een echte case, met alle mediaaandacht van dien. En je maakt kennis met een interessante werkgever.
Een jonge organisatie waarin nieuw talent direct wordt beloond met een
flinke dosis verantwoordelijkheid.
Bij Financiën tel je meteen mee.
often underestimated. This actor is
the so-called civil society, sometimes
also referred to as the ‘third sector’.
This civil society is based on voluntary
relations and private initiatives and
devotes oneself to promoting the
interests of specific social groups and
contributing to solutions for specific
problems. These organisations aim at
contributing to tackling problems like
the extreme poverty in the Third World,
worldwide environmental degradation
and climate change, bad working
conditions in many parts of the world
and the violation of human rights. After
all, reality shows that governments
and markets are not automatically
sufficient ingredients for bringing
about solutions for a wide range of
problems. Therefore, civil society,
representing the interests of all kinds
of stakeholders, has the potential to
play a crucial role on the road towards
a sustainable globalisation. After all,
one of the aspects of a sustainable
globalisation is that it takes into
account the interests of as many
stakeholders as possible.
This ‘third party’ played the leading
role in the other parallel session during
the international conference, named
‘The Powerful Arm of the Global Civil
Society’. Dennis Karpes (Co-founder
of Dance4Life), Bouwe Taverne (Head
Sustainable Developments at Rabobank
Nederland), Gerard Oonk (Director
India Committee of the Netherlands),
and Farah Karimi (Executive Director of
Oxfam Novib) have explained how they,
each in their own way, contributed to
tackling the negative consequences
of globalisation. It was illustrated that
throughout the years the power and
influence of the global civil society
have increased rapidly. First, civil
society has gained influence on the
agendas of the public and the private
sector through the media and by
lobbying with various parties. Second,
the organisations are often invited as
formal or informal interlocutors of, for
example, politicians. Furthermore, an
emergence of organised participation
of the civil society could be observed
at international organisations like the
United Nations (UN). The last recent
development is the establishment of
partnerships between companies and
civil society. Through the initiated
dialogue, the global civil society is able
to influence the policies of companies
and governments and is thereby able
to take a step ahead in becoming an
even more powerful player in the
globalisation process.
Schrijf je in voor 2 november 2009
Wat betreft je profiel: je bent derde- of vierdejaars student algemene,
bedrijfs- of fiscale economie. Ook met Nederlands of fiscaal recht en met
bestuurskunde ben je van harte welkom, net als met iedere andere
studie waar het vak openbare financiën in zit. Dus: heb je interesse in
het financieel nieuws? En wil je binnenkort zelf het nieuws maken? Schrijf
je dan vóór 2 november 2009 in via www.studentendag.nl.
The international conference wanted
to create awareness for the negative
consequences
of
globalisation.
Nevertheless, we should not forget
that globalisation also has provided
us with many positive aspects and
that these can only be increased by
adapting the global systems to the
recent developments. Professor Jagdish
Bhagwati from Colombia University
(New York) started the closing session
of the conference by making clear,
using many jokes and anecdotes,
that we need to defend globalisation
above all. After his lecture, Roderick
van Schreven (Director-General of
foreign Economic Relations at the Dutch
Ministry of Economic Affairs) once
more emphasized the benefits that
the Netherlands, as a country, has from
globalisation and that we should strive
for an even more efficient structure of
it.
Finally, the international conference
was closed by an interview with Laurens
Jan Brinkhorst, Jagdish Bhagwati and
Roderick van Schreven. During the
interview, the situation of the student
within a global context was discussed.
What advantages does globalisation
offer students and what is the role
of the student in the development
of globalisation? It proved one last
time the importance to students
to be involved and contribute to
globalisation, as we have experienced
many positive side effects and need to
make it available for others as well.
The Asset International Conference
2009 turned out to be a success from
an organisational perspective, but
even more and most importantly, it
was successful in creating awareness
for the necessity of changes. Hopefully,
we made a step ahead on the road
towards a sustainable globalisation! |
The organising committee with the chairman of the day
49
c o r in g g i r l s o n the pitch
T he passion of M aa r tje de r onde
Knowing a guy who plays football is a common thing, but knowing a girl who plays football is quite rare. With
the recent publicity for women’s football in mind - the Dutch women’s team reached the semi-finals in the
European Cup - Nekst became curious about female econometricians playing football. Fortunately, Maartje
de Ronde’s passion happens to be football.
Maartje started playing football in a team when
she moved to Tilburg last year. She joined TSVV
Merlijn, the student football association in
Tilburg. However, she used to play football with
her brothers since she was young. In fact, the
only reason she did not join a team before is that
there were no women’s teams in her home town.
Instead, she used to do gymnastics, which is
totally different from a ball game. When she got
invited for a football clinic and found out that
TSVV Merlijn had two women’s teams, Maartje
did not need to think twice about subscribing.
Name:
Maartje de Ronde
Age:
20
Begin studies:
2008
TSVV Merlijn
TSVV Merlijn has, besides the two women’s teams,
also seven men’s teams and three futsal (a kind
of indoor football) teams. It is safe to say that it
is quite a big association, although things have
been different in the past. In 1996 it was decided
to make Merlijn a so-called ‘sleeping association’
due to a lack of members. Luckily, three years
later the association got revived again and since
that time things have been going crescendo.
One of the highlights is the opening of their own
accommodation with artificial grass in August.
This accommodation is named ‘Merlinello’,
which sounds like an Italian name. We suspect
the name comes from AC Milan’s state-of-theart training facility named ‘Milanello’. Of course,
as proud students of Tilburg University, we can
only hope that one day Merlijn will be as good as
the aforementioned Italian team.
Football
At first, Maartje only participated in the training,
but since March of this year she also plays
competition. She likes playing a match more
than training and of course winning or scoring a
goal are one of the great things about matches.
Unfortunately, her position in the field is that of
a defender, so she does not score a lot. Maartje: “I
only scored once. That was after a corner when I
got the ball on my shoe.” Last year things did not
go that well in the competition as most games
50
were lost. This year things are different though.
Maartje: “After two games we are ranked in the
middle with four points, while the other teams
already played four matches.”
Besides playing in a competition, Maartje also
played a few tournaments. She was present
during the National Econometrician Football
Tournament, where she joined the board to form
a team. Unfortunately, they did not win a single
game. However, according to the chairman of
Asset | Econometrics, Harold, it was not Maartje’s
fault they lost. Another tournament organised
by student association Plato was more successful
for Maartje and her team. They reached the
semi-finals just as the Dutch women’s team did
during the European Championship. Maartje
did not follow this championship on television
though. These days she does not watch football
on television at all, because she no longer
lives with her parents where she had to watch
football when her brothers wanted to see a
match. Maartje rather plays football herself or as
she puts it: “When I am playing football, others
are watching television.”
Like every sport, football requires special
equipment. Needed are of course shoes, socks,
shorts and shirts. Maartje does not have to buy
all of this equipment herself, since Merlijn takes
care of the black socks, shorts and the black and
white striped shirt. You have to take care of your
own outfit. Shin pads are also required to protect
yourself from injuries. Yes, football is a tough
sport to play. Luckily, Maartje never got seriously
injured. She only had a sore knee for a while, but
that did not prevent her from playing.
Maybe the women are not as mean as the guys
then? Maartje did not get any red or yellow
cards yet, she did not even witness a referee
giving a card to anyone else either. “Students do
not play as aggressive as others sometimes do,”
she says. Playing for the only student team in
the competition, she noticed that some
other teams are a lot more aggressive
when playing. The student mentality
might be different, but Merlijn does get a
lot of penalties against its teams, at least
more than other teams get. According
to Maartje, this is because of players, not
necessarily on purpose, touching the ball
with their hands in the penalty area.
“Playing football is working in a team,
so teamwork is very important. Another
aspect is that due to the many losses in
last year’s competition, I learned to deal
with the feeling disappointment as well.”
Knowing almost everything about
Maartje’s passion by now, we do have a
few things we would still like to know.
of Asset | Econometrics is already a fan,
but there might be others as well. In
fact there is another fan: her boyfriend.
He visits a lot of her matches like a true
fan does. Not all matches are as pleasant
to watch though. Maartje: “The worst
match we played was when we had only
ten players and after ten minutes the
opponent already scored five times.” At
“W hen I am pla ying football, ot h e rs a re
watching television.”
The passion
Maartje trains twice a week and every
training lasts about one and a half hours.
A training session generally looks as
follows: first the warming up, which
is often dribbling in a square; then
practicing shooting on goal and passing;
and last but not least, the group is split
in two to play a match against each
other. Maartje does not need to give
up a lot for her passion. Having training
twice a week and a match on Sunday
can relatively easily be combined with
studying. Maartje repeats: “When others
are watching television, I am playing
football.” Of course, it is a matter of
preference how you want to spend your
time, either on the pitch or on the bench.
When having exams it is possible for
Maartje to skip a training session, but she
hardly ever does that. Especially during
an exam period it is nice to be able to do
something physical as a counterbalance
to the psychical effort that is needed to
pass your exams.
Maartje would describe herself as being
an annoying defender. She calls herself
annoying,because she gives her opponent
absolutely no room to play. In the future,
she does not aspire a professional career
as a football player, since she just plays
for fun. She rather finishes her studies in
Econometrics. Playing football has also
had some influence on her life. Maartje:
We are sure she knows what offside
means, so we will skip that question,
but we would like to know if she is a
fan of a particular player. Maartje: “I do
not have a real favourite, but Robben is
pretty good and Elia played very well
for the Dutch national team recently.”
She also remembers: “Van Persie was
always kind of cute.” On top of that, her
favourite team is Vitesse from Arnhem.
We are also wondering if she has any
fans herself. Of course every member
the moment, the number of players is a
problem for Maartje’s team, because they
only have ten players where they need
at least eleven for a match. It would be
ideal to have fourteen players, so anyone
who is interested is more than welcome
to join. To conclude, Nekst wishes Maartje
and her team good luck during the
remainder of the season. |
Text by: Bart Kruize
Maartje’s team
51
illenni u m P r i z e P r o b lem s
special
In order to celebrate mathematics in the 21st century, the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, (CMI) has named seven millenium prize problems. Solving one of these problems means that
you can win a one million dollar prize, if your solution is approved by the CMI Scientific Advisory Board and
the Board of Directors. In this special you can read a short introduction to these problems, but the main focus
will be on one problem in particular, the Riemann hypothesis, and its creator Bernhard Riemann.
Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture
This conjecture relates the number of
points on an elliptic curve mod p to the
rank of the group of rational points. The
size of the group of rational points is
related to the behavior of an associated
Zeta function ζ(s) near the point s=1. In
particular, this conjecture asserts that if
ζ(1) is equal to zero, then there is an infinite
number of rational points (solutions).
On the other hand, if ζ(1) is not equal to
zero, then there is only a finite number of
solutions.
also easy to solve? This is the essence of
the P vs NP problem.
his most important work during his stay
in Berlin.
Poincaré Conjecture
Henri Poincaré asked himself if the three
dimensional sphere is characterized
as the unique simply connected three
manifold. It was known in his days that
a two dimensional sphere is essentially
characterized by this property of simply
connectivity. However the question asked
by Poincaré turned out to be extremely
difficult.
Hodge Conjecture
A powerful way to investigate the shapes
of complicated objects is to ask to what
extent we can approximate the shape of
a given object by gluing together simple
geometric building blocks of increasing
dimension. The Hodge Conjecture gives
a way to find the geometric origin for
particular nice types of spaces called
projective algebraic varieties.These spaces
have a dimension set less than four, but in
dimension four the Hodge conjecture is
unknown.
Yang-Mills and Mass Gap
Experiment and computer simulations
suggest the existence of a “mass gap” to
describe strong interactions of elementary
particles. Proving this property will require
the introduction of fundamental new
ideas both in physics and in mathematics.
He returned to Göttingen in 1849, where
he worked on his PhD thesis supervised
by Gauss. Heinrich Weber and Johann
Benedict Listing, who both came to
Göttingen in 1849, strongly influenced
Riemann. He gained a strong background
in theoretical physics through Weber and
Listing. He also learned important ideas
in topology, which were of influence on
his research. Riemann’s thesis studied
the theory of complex variables and, in
particular, what we now call Riemann
surfaces. Riemann’s thesis was examined
on 16 December 1851.
Navier-Stokes Equation
This equation gives an explanation for and
a prediction of the flow of fluids such as
water and air. But there is no proof of basic
questions like: do solutions exist, and are
they unique? The challenge is to make
great progress towards a mathematical
theory which will explain the secrets in
the Navier-Stokes equation.
Bernhard Riemann was born on 17
September 1826. His father taught him
until he was ten years old. In 1842 he
entered the Lyceum in Hannover, but he
moved to the Johanneum Gymnasium in
Lüneburg two years later where he showed
a particular interest in mathematics. In
1846, Riemann enrolled in the University
of Göttingen. He moved from Göttingen
to Berlin University in the spring of 1847
where he studied under Jakob Steiner, Carl
Jacobi, Lejeune Dirichlet and Gotthold
Eisenstein. The main influence on Riemann
came from Dirichlet, who had an intuitive
way of working, which suited Riemann. He
worked out his general theory of complex
variables that formed the basis of some of
P vs NP problem
An example of this problem is the following:
how can you choose one hundred students
out of four hundred students, given a list
with couples of students who should not
appear in your final solution? The solution
of this problem is easy to check, but is it
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann
In the remainder of this article, the life of
Riemann will be discussed and thereafter
his famous hypothesis will be formulated
and explained.
52
On Karl Gauss’s recommendation, Riemann
was appointed to a post in Göttingen,
where he worked for his Habilitation, the
degree which would allow him to become
a lecturer. He gave the conditions of a
function to have an integral, what we now
call the condition of Riemann integrability.
He gave a lecture on 10 June 1854 to
complete his Habilitation, which became
a famous lecture among mathematicians.
Another masterpiece of Riemann was
published in 1857. This paper continued
where his doctoral dissertation had left
off and developed the idea of Riemann
surfaces and their topological properties.
In 1859 Riemann was elected to the Berlin
Academy of Sciences. As a new member,
Riemann had to report his most recent
research. In this report, Riemann examined
the Zeta function, which had already
been considered by Leonhard Euler. This
report contains the famous Riemann
hypothesis which remains today one of
the most important unsolved problems in
mathematics.
In June 1862 Riemann married Elise Koch,
with whom he had one daughter. In the
autumn of that same year, Riemann caught
a heavy cold, which turned to tuberculosis.
In order to try to fight the illness, he went
to the warmer climate of Italy, where he
spent most of his time. Richard Dedekind
wrote: “His strength declined rapidly and
he himself felt that his end was near. But
still, the day before his death, resting
under a fig tree, his soul filled with joy at
the glorious landscape, he worked on his
final work, which unfortunately, was left
unfinished.” Riemann died on 20 July 1866.
After his early death, Dedekind made the
beauty of Riemann’s lectures available by
publishing the material.
The Riemann Hypothesis
The Riemann hypothesis has all to do with
prime numbers. Prime numbers are natural
numbers having exactly two distinct
divisors - also belonging to the natural
numbers - implying only 1 and the prime
itself. So the first numbers are 2,3,5,7…
(1 not included). Prime numbers play an
important role in mathematics and its
applications. At first sight, the distribution
of the prime numbers among all natural
numbers appears to be following an
irregular pattern. However, Riemann
observed that the frequency of prime
numbers is related to the behavior of the
following function:
called the Riemann Zeta function. As a
derivation of this function, the Riemann
hypothesis states that all interesting
solutions of the equation ζ(x) = 0 lie on a
vertical straight line. A proof that this is true
for every interesting solution would shed
light on many of the mysteries surrounding
the distribution of prime numbers.
Therefore, the Riemann hypothesis is
currently known as the most important
unsolved problem in mathematics. In the
remainder of this article an attempt is
being made to clarify this problem and to
offer you a start for winning one million
dollars!
Halfway the 19th century, the Russian
mathematician
Pafnuti
Chebyshev
introduced a ‘logarithmic prime counting
function’ (ψ) to determine the frequency of
prime numbers among the natural numbers.
He defined this function as follows: take a
natural number and determine all powers
of the prime numbers being smaller than
or equal to this natural number and give
each power a weight corresponding to the
natural logarithm of this prime. So in case
of studying the natural number 10, this
yields: ψ(10) = 3 * ln(2) + 2 * ln(3) + 1 * ln(5)
+ 1 * ln(7) = 7.8320, since three powers of
2, two powers of 3 and one power in the
other cases fit below this number 10. An
exact formula for this function is given by:
The first term is equal to x whereas the
second term is just a constant. The most
difficult part of this formula is the latter
term. This summation contains the Greek
ρ (rho) being any point corresponding to a
zero solution of the Riemann Zeta function,
called a ‘zero’. The Riemann hypothesis is
based on these points. It is known that the
Zeta function has infinitely many zeros, so
this will be a summation of infinitely many
points.
As can be deduced from the definition of
the Zeta function, every value of x smaller
than or equal to 1 corresponds to a function
value of infinity. However, for every x larger
than 1 the function does converge and
the corresponding function value can be
determined. In the 18th century, Leonhard
Euler already found a solution for ζ(2). He
was also able to find the function value for
all other even numbers. The odd numbers
are rather complex. Although it is possible
to determine solutions, no mathematician
has been able to derive an algebraic
expression for these values yet. Moreover,
in 1978 it has been proven that ζ(3) cannot
even be written as a fraction. Euler derived
a relation between the Zeta function and
the primes:
This product of terms consists of fractions
in which the denominators are defined by
all prime numbers. Solutions are found by
using the zeros of this function. But what
are these zeros?
As stated above, the Zeta function is only
applicable for values of x larger than 1. To
make sure this function can also be used for
values smaller than or equal to 1, another
function has been created. This function,
called the èta function (η), consists
of the same terms, but is constructed
by means of plus and minus signs:
Because of these signs, this function also
converges for values of x between 0 and
1. The relation between the Zeta function
and the èta function is:
By means of this formula we can also
define the Zeta function for values of
x larger than 0 (excluding 1). A further
extension of the Zeta function is realised
by allowing complex numbers in the
domain. Complex numbers are of the form
z = x + i*y, with i = √-1. The Zeta function
seems to be converging for complex
numbers on the right hand side of the
vertical line x = 1. The èta function can also
be defined for complex values and the
above equation still holds in this case. In
other words, the Zeta function converges
for all complex numbers on the right of
the y-axis (excluding all points with z = 1).
Eventually, Riemann was able to define the
Zeta function for a domain consisting of all
complex numbers unequal to 1.
The Zeta function appears to have no
zeros at all, since its values would be larger
than 1 for every x >1. However, by using
the above techniques, it is possible to find
two types of zeros: trivial zeros and nontrivial zeros. Trivial zeros are rather easy to
find, since they all lie on the negative side
of the real axis. These points are the even
negative numbers: -2, -4, -6, … Next to these
points, there are also infinitely many nontrivial zeros. These zeros are all located in
the so-called critical zone. This critical zone
is the collection of points between the
line x = 0 and x = 1 in the complex space.
Riemann stated that all non-trivial zeros
are located in the middle of the critical
zone on the critical line defined by x = ½.
See graph 1 for a graphical representation.
53
T he O r ientati o n and
I nf o r mati o n D a y
C ommittee P r ofile
These non-trivial zeros are the key to the
relation between the Zeta function and
the logarithmic prime counting function
(ψ).
The Riemann hypothesis is still not proven
to be either valid or false. Nonetheless, a
lot of research has been done in the field
of non-trivial zeros. For instance, they are
always present as pairs of x + yi and x – yi,
so they are mirror images with respect
to the x-axis. Therefore, you only have to
search in the upper part of the critical
zone. Above all, if you are able to find just
one point off the critical line, then you
have proven the hypothesis to be false. The
hypothesis remains unsolved, although
modern computer calculations have
shown that the first ten trillion zeros lie on
the critical line. If you are able to prove the
Riemann hypothesis, then you will help a
lot of people in the field of mathematics,
since a lot of theorems are based on the
validity of the Riemann hypothesis.
In order to help you even more with
winning one million dollar for proving
this hypothesis, we included several
mathematicians who have tried to prove
the Riemann hypothesis and could help
you with revealing the truth. First of all,
Watkins (2007) listed various incorrect and
some frequently announced solutions.
Some proofs still need to be checked
and others are already withdrawn by the
authors.
Hilbert–Pólya Conjecture
Hilbert and Pólya used spectral theory to
prove the Riemann hypothesis. They used
a self-adjoint operator to yield a theory
on the real parts of the zeros of the Zeta
function based on a criterion on the real
eigenvalues. Odlyzko (1978) showed that
the distribution of the zeros shares some
statistical properties with the eigenvalues
of random matrices drawn from the
Gaussian unitary ensemble - obtained
by multiplying a translation-invariant
measure by the Gaussian function. These
theories support statements of the
Hilbert–Pólya conjecture.
satisfies the bound
The Orientation and Information Day (OID) has been organised by Asset | Econometrics since 1998. This year
the OID committee 2009-2010 has the honour and challenge of organising this event, which will take place
Graph 1: the critical line for the
Zeta function
Lee-Yang Theorem
The Lee-Yang theorem states that the
zeros of certain partition functions in
statistical mechanics all lie on a “critical
line” with real part 0. This theorem led to
some speculation about a relationship
of these partition functions with the
Riemann hypothesis.
Skepticism
The numerical verification that many zeros
lie on the critical line seems to be strong
evidence for the Riemann hypothesis.
However, analytic theory knew many
conjectures supported by large amounts
of numerical evidence that eventually
turned out to be false. A counterexample
to the Riemann hypothesis with imaginary
part of immense size might be far beyond
anything that can currently be computed.
The problem is that the behavior of the
zeros is often influenced by very slowly
increasing functions, that tend to infinity,
but do so slowly that this cannot be
detected by computation.
with probability 1. The values of this
function are positions in a simple random
walk and you may even be able to calculate
these values yourself. The Riemann
hypothesis is equivalent to this bound
for several functions. In other words, the
Riemann hypothesis is in some sense
equivalent to saying that μ(x) behaves like
a random sequence of coin tosses. Such
probabilistic arguments are often true,
but tend to be very hard to make rigorous
and occasionally give the wrong answer
for some results.
The calculations in Odlyzko (1987) showed
that the zeros of the Zeta function behave
very much like eigenvalues and suggested
that they are the eigenvalues of some
self-adjoint operator, which would imply
the Riemann hypothesis. However, all
attempts to find such an operator failed.
So whatever your opinion is about the
validity of the Riemann hypothesis or any
other of the millennium prize problems,
do not hesitate and prove your conjecture
in order to win one million dollars! |
Text by: Tess Beukers & Frans Fonville
Reference list
1. The Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts
(CMI). (Website: http://www.claymath.org/millennium, 16 Oct.
2009)
2. Craats, J. van de and R. van der Veen (2008), Lesteksten bij
de webklas wiskunde: De Riemann Hypothese. Korteweg-deVries Instituut voor Wiskunde, Universiteit van Amsterdam,
Amsterdam.
There also exists a probabilistic argument
for the Riemann hypothesis (Edwards
1974). If μ(x) is a random sequence of
1’s and −1’s then, for every ε > 0, the
function
54
on Wednesday 4 November 2009 at The Gallery.
The OID committee 2009-2010 consists of
seven members. Claudia Rommens (Chairman),
who tries to keep us focused and organised
especially during the meetings; Bart Kruize
( Treasurer), who is in charge of moderating our
wild ideas of which the execution simply does
not fit into the budget; Marleen Balvert, Pascal
Heuijerjans and Evelien Kerkmeijer (External
Affairs) who have found some very interesting
companies willing to participate; Stèphanie
van Breda (Coordinator) who, together with
the chairman, makes sure everything is taken
care of; lastly Tycho Speekenbrink (Secretary)
who ensures that all that is spoken about in
the meeting is not immediately forgotten.
The OID has always had two main purposes.
Firstly, this day provides bachelor students
with information about the remainder of the
Econometrics and Operations Research (EOR)
programme and about the different master
programmes. Secondly, this day provides the
opportunity for all EOR students, including
master students, to get acquainted with the
labour market.
The OID provides information about the EOR
study programme to bachelor students via an
information session. Freshmen are informed
about the remainder of their bachelor
programme. At the same time second year
students are informed about the optional
courses they can take and about the different
master programmes.
3. Edwards, H. M. (1974), Riemann’s Zeta Function. Dover
Publications, New York, ISBN 978-0-486-41740-0.
4. Odlyzko, A. M. (1987), On the distribution of spacings between
zeros of the zeta function. Mathematics of Computation 48
(177): 273–308, ISSN 0025-5718.
5. Robertson, E.F. and J.J. O’Connor (1998). Biography of Georg
Friedrich Bernhard Riemann. (Website: http://www-history.mcs.
st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Riemann.html, 16 Oct. 2009)
To get acquainted with the labour market several
other sessions are organised. Companies that
represent one or more of the different master
directions, Quantitative Finance & Actuarial
Science, Operations Research & Management
Science and Mathematical Economics &
Econometric Methods, are present. To get a
general idea of the different directions and of
the specific companies, we included several
company presentations as well as several
company cases for a bit more interaction. After
a hectic period of organising, due to, among
other things, the summer holiday where it was
more likely to get a voicemail than a person on
the other end of the line, we managed, for the
aforementioned presentations and cases, to
get some very interesting companies. At this
edition of the Orientation & Information Day
the companies that are present are Accenture,
CPB, ING, Pharmerit, TNO and Watson Wyatt.
This year two other brand new features will
be introduced to the OID. The first feature
is the possibility for third year and master
students to ask all their specific questions
about the company or about a possibility for
an internship, work-studentship or an aftergraduation job in a speeddate session. The
second feature is the possibility for students
to get informed about the best way to set up a
CV in the CV session organised by the Student
Service Centre.
Traditionally, the OID presents some other
unique events on the day. There is for example
an orientation debate, under guidance of
Henk Norde, a case organised especially for
freshmen, this year by Ruud Hendrickx and
John Kleppe, and an introduction of the day
by means of a presentation about an actual
econometric subject. This year Hein Fleuren,
who has his own company “OR Coach” and
whom you might know from the courses
Simulation or Supply Chain Collaboration and
Advanced Planning, has provided us with the
honour of presenting on this year’s OID. On
this day he will tell us about research he has
done in the field of Operations Research &
Management Science.
Name:
Tycho Speekenbrink
Age:
22
Begin studies:
2008
We want to conclude this article by saying that
we hope to see you all the 4th of November in
The Gallery for the OID 2009! |
55
g r eat s ta r t o f a new
t r aditi o n
A n e s cape f r o m the w o o d s
TILBURG UNIVERSITY CANTUS
puzzle
On Thursday 3 September 2009 a very special cantus took place and of course: I was present. To celebrate the
In order to solve this puzzle, you have to be a real adventurer. The goal of this puzzle is to escape from the
opening of the academic year, 1300 thirsty students gathered at the Heuvel square to sing, drink and enjoy.
woods. Your analytical skills may come in useful, but you never know what may happen in the woods…
Together with a friend of mine from Hungary and thirty enthusiastic econometricians, we had a night to
remember.
Name:
Inge Pulles
Age:
22
Begin studies:
2005
The Tilburg University Cantus was an idea of
three former Tilburg University students. They
looked at other Dutch and Belgium student cities
and realised that our opening of the academic
year was just a celebration for a select group of
people instead of for all students. That is why
these three former students wanted to organise a
big event so that all students would celebrate the
beginning of the academic year and meet their
friends again after a two month holiday. Since the
students in Tilburg have a history in having a socalled cantus, they decided that they wanted to
organise such a cantus, too. This idea turned into
reality on 3 September, when 1300 students from
Tilburg University, Avans and Fontys gathered on
the Heuvel square to participate in the first Tilburg
University Cantus.
For the people that do not know what a ‘cantus’ is, I
will explain this typically Dutch students’ tradition:
a cantus, also called beer cantus, is an event where
singing and drinking beer go hand in hand.You sing
songs out of a special ‘cantus booklet’ and a choir
of men sings the songs while the participants sing
along. There are rules during the cantus like ‘do not
go to the toilet during the songs’ and ‘do not get
your beer yourself, since there are people to bring
you beer’. These rules have been made in order to
make the cantus go smoothly. Luckily, sneaking to
the toilet was possible during this cantus.
Singing in the rain
56
Even before the cantus started, we had our first
beer during an enormous beer drinking race. Our
row of tables, consisting of thirty members of
Asset | Econometrics, thirty members of Asset |
Accounting & Finance and ten members of Asset |
First International, organised a contest to see which
side of the table was the fastest with drinking
beers. This resulted in a lot of encouragement and
‘bottoms up’ drinking. Eventually the other team
won.
The cantus started with some speeches followed
by the traditional first song: our national anthem.
After that, the sky was turning more and more
grey and it looked like it would not only be beer
falling out of the sky. Luckily the organisation
arranged ponchos for everyone so that all die-hard
participants could continue with the beer cantus
in the rain.
My friend from Hungary, who was visiting me
those days, had a blast, too. She had a great time
singing Dutch songs and experiencing this Dutch
tradition. It was really nice to show a foreigner the
great traditions that we have. Nowhere in Europe
people combine drinking beer and doing karaoke
(two of my favourite hobbies) as well as in the
Netherlands. Of course the cantus ended with a lot
of drunken people throwing beers, dancing on the
tables and performing the tradition of dancing in
a row known as ‘polonaise’. In these kinds of events,
photos tell more than words and according to the
photos we all had a wonderful time. After the
cantus, most people went to Café Philip to have a
great after party. Others went for something to eat
or were so wasted they thought it was better to go
home. This might be positively correlated with the
scheduled classes on Friday morning.
First of all, this puzzle appears to be less difficult than usual.
But the opposite is true. The mathematician Euler discovered
a rule for solving all kinds of maze puzzles. His method is
mainly based on working backwards. This puzzle, however,
was built to defeat this strategy. The rules are simple, but
strict.
the number of steps indicated in the square. Your journey
continues, following the requirements of the numbers
reached, until you come upon a square with a number which
will help you just one step beyond the border of the forest.
In this case you will be out of the woods and you can hop
around, as you will have solved the puzzle!
You start in the centre of the woods and since you are scared
to death you will only use the main roads. These roads
lead in eight directions: north, south, east, west, northeast,
northwest, southeast and southwest. You have to follow the
road until you reach a new spot in the woods, where you can
rest. The number in the square indicates the number of steps
you can travel the next day with the amount of energy you
have after a night of sleep. You can only move this number
of steps in a straight line in the eight directions to a new
spot. From this new spot you can reach other places with
Please send your solution to the puzzle to [email protected] before 1 December 2009. The previous
puzzle, the mental arithmetic training, was solved by many
readers. Therefore, Nekst chose a winner at random. The lucky
winner is Gerwald van Gulick. He can pick up a crate of beer
or a cake (Dutch: vlaai) at the Asset | Econometrics room. For
the winner of this puzzle, the same prize will be waiting.
Good luck!
Example
Only the 3 in the square in the bottom
left corner can take you out of the
woods, since it takes you exactly one
step away from the border. Any other
square gets you too far in any direction
and therefore you cannot leave the
woods starting from those squares. |
To conclude I want to stress that such an event is
something you have to experience during your
studies in Tilburg. This also involves international
students. So see you on 12 November 2009 at the
COdE beer cantus? |
57
r ad u ate s
P lannin g
to conclude
to conclude
Over the past months, the following econometricians obtained their Bachelor’s and Master’s
degree. Asset | Econometrics would like to congratulate:
Name: Supervisors: J. Abbing
Dr Ir C.M.H. Kuijpers, Prof. Dr H.A. Fleuren
Name: Title: Supervisors: I. Blankers
Using the Shapley Value to break terrorist networks
Prof. Dr H.J.M. Hamers, Prof. Dr P.E.M. Borm
Name: T.J. Boonen
Title: Average Marginal Contribution Rule for Risk Capital Allocation Problems
Supervisors: Prof. Dr H.W. Norde, Prof. Dr A.M.B. Dewae
genaere
Name:
Title: Supervisors: M. Keuten
Forecast Accuracy Evaluation in Consumable Parts Distribution
Dr Ir Ashayeri, Dr Ir L.W.G. Strijbosch
Name: Title: Supervisors: K. Mennens
Welfare implications of the use of annuities in the decumulation of pension entitlements
Prof. Dr Th.E. Nijman, Prof. Dr B.J.M. Werker
Name: Supervisors: I. Minderhoud
Dr R.J. Mahieu, Prof. Dr Th.E. Nijman
Name: Supervisors: M.H.N. Cornelissen
Prof. Dr H.A. Fleuren, Dr Ir Ing. Peeters
Name: Supervisors: Nguyen
Prof. Dr B. Melenberg, Dr J. Inkmann
Name: Title: Supervisors: C.C. DuPlooij
Measuring the risks in a defined contribu
tion pension plan – the Dutch case
Dr R.J. Mahieu, Prof. Dr B. Melenberg
Name: Title: Supervisors: H. Snijders
Methods for recursive packing problems
Prof. Dr Ir D. den Hertog
Name: Title: Supervisors: B. Gorissen
Almost distance regular graphs
Prof. Dr Ir E.R. van Dam, Dr Ir Ing. M.J.P. Peeters
Name: Title: Supervisors: M. Groote Schaarsberg
Cooperative Operative Games
Prof. Dr P.E.M. Borm, Prof. Dr H.J.M. Hamers
Name: R.D. Heesen
Title: How Flow can you go
Supervisors: Prof. Dr H.J.M. Hamers, Prof. Dr H.A. Fleuren
Name: Title: Supervisors: J.M. Janus
Scheduling OR Planning
Dr Ir J. Ashayeri, Dr R.C.M. Brekelmans
Name: R. Stasiukynaite
Title: Herding Behaviour in an Agent-Based Financial Market
Supervisors: Prof. Dr B. Melenberg, Dr R.J. Mahieu
Name: Title: Supervisors: M. Taanman
Developing a production planning tool for brass alloy manufacturing
Prof. Dr H.A. Fleuren, Dr R.C.M. Brekelmans
Name: Title: Supervisors: Yuan Yuan Wu
Scaling Properties Analysis of Stock Market Volatility Using Wavelet-Based Methodology
Dr R.H. Mahieu, Prof. Dr B. Melenberg
Wednesday 4 November
Orientation & Information Day
During the Orientation & Information Day students of the
Econometrics & OR programme will be informed about the
remainder of their studies and about the master directions
they can follow. Furthermore, the day is an opportunity for
students to get into contact with companies by means of,
among others, a case and a presentation.
Saturday 7 November
Former Active Members Day
On this day the first KOALA activity of this academic year will
take place. Together with old active members, we are going
to dine at restaurant ‘Sprakeloos’. We will gather at 18.30
hours to enjoy a three course dinner.
Tuesday 10 November
Activity & Lecture Drink
After the success of the Game Afternoon, the Drinks &
Activities committee will organise their second activity for
all members. Afterwards, we will go to Café Qwibus for a
lecture of Ernst & Young and a drink.
Thursday 12 November
Beer Cantus
The first Beer Cantus of Asset will take place on 12 November.
During this evening, students will sing a lot of familiar songs
combined with a beer after every song. Like any beer cantus,
it is going to be a great event.
58
Friday 20 November
Active Members Day
On this day, we want to thank our active members for
their contributions to the association during this year.
The programme of the day will be a secret for every active
member except for the Active Members Day committee.
Tuesday 24 November up to and including Friday 27 November
Finance Expedition
During this week a select group of students will visit five
financial companies in the Randstad Area. The participants
will make cases at the offices of the companies. Besides this
interactive session, there will be dinners and lunches with
the recruiters of the companies.
Tuesday 8 December
Freshmen Activity & Drink
On this day, the Freshmen Committee will organise a great
activity for all first year econometricians. Afterwards, we will
go to Café Babbus to join all the other members for a drink.
Friday 11 December
Parents Evening
On this evening, the parents of all active members are invited
to take a closer look at Asset | Econometrics. They will hear
about the different committees we have and they will see
where their children hang out all day.
59
u at s ch !
r ema r kable quotes
Fortunately, the editorial staff of Nekst received many quotes that relate to the study of Econometrics and
to the activities organised by Asset | Econometrics. Therefore, a very well-filled page with some striking and
sensational quotes! Please mail all remarkable quotes you have heard to [email protected]!
English quotes
Mr Schumacher during Financial Models: “Some of your
assignments were marked as spam. So please avoid the word
‘Viagra’ in your assignment next time.”
Mr Schumacher during Financial Models: “Not Wiener
Melange, but Wiener Process. (...) What would be the next
term? Yes, indeed ‘d_t’, not d_Coffee.”
Mr Drost during a lecture of Statistics for Econometrics: “Let
us take a look at a: Thietebar (θ).”
Haemers explains an equation about transforming real
numbers into complex numbers during a lecture of Applied
Linear Algebra: “Complex makes it easy, that is why it is called
complex.”
Mr Charlier during a tutorial of Risk Theory: “Those stars just
mean multiplication.”
Ms Sotirov during a lecture of Combinatorial Optimization:
“Not any solution of a knapsack problem is feasible. You
cannot put a house in your suitcase.”
Dutch quotes
Stephanie van Breda in een mail naar een actief lid n.a.v. een
vraag met betrekking tot de tijdsdruk in deze commissie:
“De Asset Conference commissie kost ongeveer 15 euro per
week.”
Whitney Pattinaja geeft haar interpretatie van ‘t.a.v.’: “Moet
die brief dan verstuurd worden ter aanvang van?”
Stephanie van Breda: “Linda, hoe heet die man ook alweer
met wie we zo een afspraak hebben?” Linda: “Rob Smit”.
Stephanie tegen de receptioniste: “Goedemiddag, we hebben
een afspraak met Bart Smit.”
Whitney Pattinaja bij het bespreken van de post ‘printing
cost’: “Dus de printing costs bestaan met name uit inktkosten?
Maar we hebben toch genoeg pennen op de kamer?”
Stephanie van Breda stuurt een mail naar een bedrijfscontact:
“Bedrijven houden op de OID een case van 300 woorden.”
Linda Vos stelt een serieuze vraag over het onderwerp
zweefvliegen: “Moet je dan ook betalen voor de brandstof?”
Linda Vos over de schilderijen van de schilderworkshop:
“Mevrouw Schilder belde vandaag om te vertellen dat je de
doeken op kan halen.” Evelien Kerkmeijer aan de telefoon:
“Kan ik mevrouw Schilder spreken over de doeken?” Respons:
“Mevrouw Schilder is bij ons niet bekend.”
Pascal Heuijerjans: “Welke kleur badges krijgen de leraren
dan?” Claudia Rommens: “Ik denk dezelfde als de docenten.”
Stephanie van Breda: “Mathijs, deze
teruggestuurd.”
brief
is
...als je niet voor
de grootste kiest.
retour
Ruud Hendrickx’ meestergrap: “Het is oranje en het golft, rara
wat is het?” (…) “Een sinusappel.”
Whitney Pattinaja tegen een oud-bestuurslid: “Als een
student met pensioen gaat, moeten wij dan daar ook heen?”
Claudia is bezig met de adressen om het OID boekje naar toe
te sturen: “Waarom woont iedereen op nummer 31. Heb ik
iets verkeerd gedaan, ofzo?”
Stephanie van Breda tijdens beachvolleybal: “Dat gras is best
koud onder mijn voeten.”
Wie graag goed wil leren zeilen, kan twee dingen
net zo goed voor onze traineeships waarin je diverse
doen. Je kunt aan boord stappen van een groot zeilschip
functies bij verschillende afdelingen vervult. Waardoor je
en alles leren over een bepaald onderdeel, zoals de stand
meer ervaring opdoet, meer leert en sneller groeit.
van het grootzeil. Of je kiest voor een catamaran, waarop
SNS REAAL is met een balanstotaal van € 124 miljard en
je zelf de koers bepaalt en jouw ontwikkeling direct van
zo’n 8.000 medewerkers groot genoeg voor jouw ambities
invloed is op de snelheid van je boot. Zo werkt
het ook met een startfunctie bij SNS REAAL, de
Starters
en klein genoeg voor een persoonlijk contact.
Ambitieuze en ondernemende starters op hbo-
innovatieve en snelgroeiende dienstverlener in bankieren
en wo-niveau bieden we naast een afwisselende functie
en verzekeren. Waar je als starter bij een hele grote
een uitstekend salaris en goede doorgroeimogelijkheden.
organisatie vaak een vaste plek krijgt met specieke
Aan jou de keuze: laat je de koers van je carrière door
Edwin Lohmann tegen Mark Timmermans: “Dat is nou exact
het verschil tussen jou en Ramon: ik ben oprecht.”
werkzaamheden, kun je je aan boord bij SNS REAAL in de
anderen bepalen of sta je liever zelf aan het roer? Kijk voor
volle breedte van onze organisatie ontwikkelen. Dat geldt
meer informatie over de startfuncties en traineeships van
Stephanie van Breda: “Die gaan wel heel vaak op vakantie.”
Whitney Pattinaja: “Nee, vacancy betekent vacature!”
voor onze nanciële, commerciële en IT-functies, maar
SNS REAAL op www.werkenbijsnsreaal.nl.
Bas Verheul vraagt Anouk naar haar achternaam. Frans
probeert te helpen met een ludieke opmerking: “Niet staan,
maar…” Bas: “Lopen!”
Linda Vos: “Als ik over de sloot spring, doe jij dat dan ook?”
Guido Hendrikx, terwijl hij de opdrachten van Calle van de
Wiel voor het vak Stochastic Models bekijkt: “Dit is memory
voor gevorderden.”
Je leert meer...
Stefan Damen vraagt tijdens het Mariokarten aan Ramon van
Schaik: “Is deze goed, die Browser?”
60
Het doel is om jou
te overtuigen van
een stage bij ons.
Ga naar
aegon.nl/stages
Eerlijk over
werken bij AEGON.

first edition, November 2009

Transcription

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