Peter Nijkamp

Peter Nijkamp (born 26 February 1946) is a Dutch economist, Professor of Regional Economics and Economic Geography at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a fellow of the Tinbergen Institute and President of the Governing Board of the Netherlands Research Council (NWO). He is ranked among the top 100 economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc, and is by far the most prolific economist. Towards the end of his career at the VU university Nijkamp faced accusations of (self)plagiarism and VU-appointed investigators have criticised referencing methods in some of his work.

Born in Dalfsen, Overijssel, Nijkamp received his MSc in Econometrics and Regional Economics in 1970, and his PhD in Regional Economics in 1972, both from the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

He has honorary doctorates from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the National Technical University of Athens. He is a winner of the Spinozapremie (1996), the European Prize in Regional Science, and Founder's Medal of the Regional Science Association International.

He has been member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1987.

In 2013, the PhD thesis of one of his students was withdrawn one day before the scheduled defence. It consisted almost entirely of papers jointly written with Nijkamp. An internal investigation at the VU determined that some of these papers were recycled versions of yet earlier papers, with other co-authors, who had not been cited properly and this might be considered a form of plagiarism. The VU's rector, Frank van der Duyn Schouten, stated that Nijkamp had acted improperly but had not committed plagiarism. The student involved was allowed to adapt the thesis and the graduation ceremony took place in 2014.

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