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André Decoster

Full Professor at the Faculty of Business and Economics at KU Leuven

KU Leuven

About me

André Decoster (1958) is full professor at the Faculty of Business and Economics of KU Leuven, where he teaches courses “Principles of Economics”, “Public Finance” and “Welfare, Inequality and Poverty”, and where he currently chairs the Department of Economics (2017-2020).

His research and publications concern the construction and use of microsimulation models, with special focus on indirect taxes and labour supply; optimal taxation and the evaluation of tax reforms, with special focus on how to measure individual welfare; and empirical analysis of changes in inequality and/or poverty, both at the national and international level. His research is mainly based on the empirical analysis of micro data: household budget surveys, household income surveys, and administrative data of social security registers or tax forms.

He coordinates the Belgian national team in the European network of microsimulation which develops and maintains the EUROMOD-model, and is a founding member of the International Microsimulation Association. In 2015 he won the Taxman Award (prize from jury and prize from the public), and the Maatschappijprijs KU Leuven, for research with broad societal impact (project Rekening14). He is fellow of the World Wealth and Inequality Database network (Paris), in the context of which he initiated the integration of a series of Belgian top income shares into the publicly available and internationally recognized database.

More info and list of publications on: www.andredecoster.be