Welcome

Welcome! I am the Director of Research at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and an adjunct Professor of Finance at KU Leuven. At the EBRD, I manage a team of economists researching the economic transformation of the Bank’s countries of operation. We also conduct rigorous impact evaluations (including randomized controlled trials) to measure how EBRD investments contribute to economic development and environmental sustainability. Our research informs the operations and strategy of the Bank and is prominently featured in the EBRD’s annual flagship publication, the Transition Report. 

I am also a CEPR Research Fellow in both the ‘Banking and Corporate Finance’ and the ‘Climate Change and the Environment’ programs; a member of the CEPR’s Research and Policy Network on Sustainable Finance; a Fellow at the European Banking Center; and a Research Associate at the ZEW–Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research. I serve as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Banking & Finance. 

I completed my Ph.D. in Economics at Utrecht University and my research has been published since then in the Journal of Financial Economics; Review of Financial Studies; Management Science; Review of Finance; Journal of International Economics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics; the Journal of the European Economic Association, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Economic Geography, the Journal of Economic Growth and other peer-reviewed outlets. In 2014, I received the Willem F. Duisenberg Fellowship Prize.

My research lies at the intersection of empirical banking and development economics. I am particularly interested in firms’ and households’ access to financial services; the stability aspects of global banking; finance and green growth; and the role of gender in the economy.

Disclaimer: All the material and opinions expressed on this website are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EBRD.