Teaching staff
Michael Frömmel obtained his PhD at the Leibniz Universität Hannover,Rudi Vander Vennet is chairman of the Department of Financial Economics at Ghent University. After obtaining a degree in economics and a master in finance, he was enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of Rochester, New York. His Ph.D. dissertation analyzed the performance effects of European bank mergers and acquisitions. He is (co-) author of various articles on banking and monetary topics in, e.g., Journal of Money, Credit and Banking or Journal of Banking and Finance and he has written several contributions in books dealing with European bank markets and the EMU. In 1999 he received two important scientific awards. Next to his academic duties, he has acquired valuable experience as a member of the board of dir ectors of a number of holding companies and financial institutions and as a consultant for various financial companies.
William De Vijlder has been working in asset management since 1989. Since 2000 he is Global Chief Investment Officer and managing director of Fortis Investments, the asset management company of Fortis. He obtained his PhD at Ghent University in 1990 and has been part-time professor at the same university since 1991.
Koen Schoors obtained his PhD at Ghent University with a dissertation on the emergence of Russian banking. His main research interests are focused on the financial and institutional aspects of transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe. He has acquired valuable experience with projects in the former Soviet Republics and he is an affiliate researcher at LICOS (Institute for Central and East-Euro-pean Studies in Leuven) and RECEP (Russian European Centre for Economic Policy) in Moscow.
Frank Smets is currently Deputy Director General Research at the European Central Bank. He joined the ECB's research department in December 1998. From 1992 till 1998 he worked in the Research Group of the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. He earned a Ph.D in economics from Yale University in 1993. His research deals with all aspects of monetary policy including monetary policy strategy and rules, the monetary transmission mechanism, international finance, the role of financial markets and empirical modeling for policy analysis. He currently chairs a Eurosystem Research Network on Wage Dynamics. He is a research affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London and has published in many peer-reviewed academic journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Monetary Economics and the Journal of the European Economic Association. He is a co-editor of the International Journal of Central Banking.
Herman Verwilst obtained his PhD in economics at the Johns Hopkins University (USA) in 1974 and worked until 1979 at the International Monetary Fund. In 1980 he joined the Department of Financial Economics at Ghent University as full-time professor. He is now part-time professor. After a political career as head of the cabinet at the Belgian Ministery of Economic Affairs and as a member of the Belgian Senate, he moved to the financial sector where he had several executive functions first at the ASLK-Bank and later in the Fortis Group. Currently, he is chair-man of the board of directors and CEO at Fortis Bank. Furthermore, he is chairman or member of several boards of management and advisory councils (amongst other Censor of the National Bank of Belgium). He has written several academic articles on of banking and monetary economics, which were published in both international and Belgian journals. In 1994 he held the distinguished Francqui chair in Economics.
Gerdie Everaert obtained his Ph.D. at Ghent University in 2000 with a dissertation on public capital, economic growth and the labour market. He teaches econometrics at Ghent University. His current research interests are the macroeconomics and econometrics of the labour market and the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy. He published in Public Choice, Economic Modelling and Labour.