Asset | Econometrics Magazine

Volume 17, four th edition, June 2009

Interview with Head of Planning Shell

Special: Hein van den Wildenberg

Summer contest
Mathematical photo challenge

The future of Econometrics

Changes in the programme

ekst
nekst4.indd 1 12-6-2009 11:59:30
 Ernst & Young

nekst4.indd 2 12-6-2009 11:59:30

 l w a y s the same

preface

COLO P H O N
Nekst is the quar te r l y m a g a z i n e
of Asset | Econom e t r i c s © 2 0 0 9

Corresp ondence
T ilburg Universit y
R o om E 110
P.O. B ox 90153
5000 LE T ilburg
Telephone: 013 46 6 2 7 4 7
info@Asset-Econom e t r i c s. n l
www.Asset-Econom e t r i c s. n l

Editorial staff
M ar leen B alver t
Tess B euk ers For the seventeenth time in the history of the Asset | Econometrics magazine
S er vaas van B ilsen
T im B o onen
T imo D eist the current editor-in-chief has the honour to introduce to you the editor-in-
Emile van E len
M irjam G ro ote Sch a a r s b e rg chief for the upcoming year.
Whitney Pattinaja
B as Ver heul
Linda Vos
Rather annoying it must be for you, as a loyal reader of this great magazine, to read again
Contributions and again about how much the current editor-in-chief enjoyed his work and about the
M ar ije Alblas fact that all beginnings have an end.
H ettie B o onman
Edwin van Dam
Stefan Damen Apparently all chief editors do somehow have the feeling that they have to share this
Harold van H eijst thought with you. But do not worry, I am not going to bore you with that.
D or i van Hulst
W ilb er t K istemak e r
Patr ick Kuijp ers Neither my intentions would be satisfied nor would your expectations of this preface be
Wouter Ludwig met if I would just leave it to announcing the new editor-in-chief. Therefore, as usual, I am
Ir is M ehlk opf going to tell you about the content as well.
R o el M ehlk opf
T im van der M olen Ku i p e r s
H enk Norde So let us face things first though. Likely, the only reason why you are still reading is
R obb er t van O oste n because you are curious about the new editor-in-chief. Therefore, I will spend just four
S ander van der Plo e g sentences on the contents, including this one, before I continue with announcing the
Promotion commit te e new editor-in-chief. This edition of Nekst contains several interviews, including one with
M ar ta S er ra-G arcia
T im Thijssen Head of Planning at Shell and one with professor Nijman, who is affiliated with Netspar.
Freder ic Ver meule n Furthermore, due to great successes from last year, the photo contest is back as well. Your
B ar t Verscho or usual sections are of course also well represented. All right, to back the moment you have
David Vonk a all been waiting for. Actually, without you probably noticing, you already came across the
first name of the new editor-in-chief. I would like to ask you to first do as I describe and
E nglish language co rre c to r then to continue reading the next line. Form a word of all the first letters of the first words
Ni kk i Idema of the five paragraphs of this preface. That word makes the first name of the new editor-
in-chief. Curious about his last name? Of course I am not going to give it to you just like
Printing that. Go to the website stuwww.uvt.nl/asset-econometrics/curious/ to check it out. Enjoy
D rukk er ij O ffset S e r v i ce your summer!

Ci rculation
650

Emile van Elen

Editor-in-chief

Nekst 4 - June 2009 

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 01 Preface
05 From the board
07 Chairmen of LOES associations
a b l e of C ontents 08
12
Interview Hein van den Wildenberg
Tapas, lecture and drink
13 Excursion Aon
14 Changes in the bachelor and master programme
17 Opinion poll
18 Econometric game
20 Active members weekend

24 Column Frederic Vermeiulen

26 Scientific article
31 Cycling dinner
32 Business interview Deloitte
36 The teacher: Theo Nijman
39 Beer cantus
40 Excursion Ernst & Young
41 Freshmen activity and drink
43 Nacht van Eindhoven
44 Symposium

46 Business interview Rabobank

49 Football tournament and drink
50 The passion of Kathinka de Veer
53 Column Roel Mehlkopf
54 Exchange report
56 Economic Business week Tilburg
58 Excursion Ministry of Finance
60 Living in Lodges
62 Practical report
64 Cooking with the committee
65 Committee profile
66 Summer contest
67 Puzzle
68 Quatsch

nekst4.indd 2 12-6-2009 11:59:36

 Advertisements
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Watson Wyatt 22
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Deloitte 30
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Charity: Wandeling voor Behandeling 48
Rabobank 52
PricewaterhouseCoopers 59
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nekst4.indd 3 12-6-2009 11:59:37

 Aegon

nekst4.indd 4 12-6-2009 11:59:37

 A n o v e r v ie w
from the board
Dear members, all good things come to an end. Even though the official end of our board year is still months
ahead, it certainly does not feel that way. After quite a busy period with among other things the Finance
Symposium, Active Members Weekend (AMW) and this last Nekst of the year, it is getting significantly quieter
at the Asset | Econometrics room.
This peaceful period will probably not last long,
since there are five enthusiastic active members
who cannot wait to start the summer as candidate
board of Asset | Econometrics. During the summer
there will be plenty of time for the candidates to
familiarise themselves with the daily business of
our association and learn more about everything
that is known about the thirty-year history and
traditions of our association.
Our association has many traditions most
of which can be practised, and therefore
are practised excessively, during an AMW.
Therefore we were not at all surprised when
a former board member drove off with the
association flag hanging out of the window
of his car after visiting the location of the
AMW. Furthermore during this year’s AMW
the tradition of Masters of Barbecue Masters
was brought back to life with the installation
of three new Juniors of Barbecue Masters.
Unfortunately not all traditions were carried
out properly. For instance, Douwe Egberts
Roodmerk coffee was nowhere in sight and
I have not been flipped while sleeping. Not
that there were no attempts at flipping me,
but I just kept waking up every time someone
came near my bed. Resulting in frustrated
members who waited next to my bed until I
would fall asleep and finally a violent attempt
to flip me while I was already awake. I hope
I made up for the failing of this tradition by
serving everyone bacon and eggs after going
out and cleaning the toilets at the end of the
weekend, one of the less favoured traditions
among Asset | Econometrics chairmen.
Nekst 4 - June 2009 
nekst4.indd 5
With rounding up the last activity of the
year and the introduction of the candidate
board the ending of our year on the board of
our association becomes definite. We are all
excited about life after our board year, but it
is strange to say goodbye to the world that
we have created this year at the rooms of
Asset | Econometrics. A world in which there
is plenty of time for sports, including table
football and various interesting variants of
volleyball, and where strange nicknames like
Allie, Buddy, Fox, Mattie and Swa are common
use. A world were there is never a clean piece
of dishes to be found and it is not uncommon
to run into a half-eaten sandwich that looks
like it has been sitting out for quite a while. Name:
A world where we laugh at Emile’s somewhat Marije Alblas
femine bag, Linda’s jokes that are so extremely
bad it actually makes them funny, Mathijs’ dry
sense of humour, Stefan’s loud voice when Position:
using the phone and my somewhat peculiar Chairman
eating and drinking habits. And the best
Asset | Econometrics
thing is that a while after the start of a board
year, active members start to catch up on the Board 2008-2009
humour created by a new board an actually
join in on the bad jokes and the ridiculing of
the habits and looks of board members. After
almost a year the jokes are starting to get old
so it is right about time for new jokes and a
new world created by a new board.
On behalf of the Asset | Econometrics board,
Marije Alblas
Chairman Asset | Econometrics
12-6-2009 11:59:39
 PGGM

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 hai r men of the l oes
associations
an introduction
In the Netherlands, besides Tilburg University, there are
five other places where the possibility exists to study
Econometrics. One might expect that the courses in
the other cities probably only differ in name when you
compare it to the courses at Tilburg University. Nekst
wondered if the same thing holds for the econometric study
associations. Therefore we asked the five chairmen of the
LOES associations in the rest of the Netherlands what kind
of activities they organise within their study association.
First of all I would like to introduce myself
to you: my name is Geert Stapensea
and this year I am the chairman of
the Econometric Study Association in
Rotterdam ( Econometrisch Dispuut ). Our
most fun activity is without a doubt our
International Research Project. Students
do a research project in the Netherlands
and will then travel to a destination
outside Europe for about three weeks to
have an unforgettable journey. I would
like to thank the editors of this magazine
for giving me the opportunity to tell Geert Stapensea
something about the most fun activity Econometrisch Dispuut
of our association. Erasmus University
Rotterdam
Kraket is a study association of and
for students that study the course
Econometrics and Operational Research
at the Free University of Amsterdam. The
small size of this study association is the
thing that makes Kraket a very personal
and fun association. Most students and
teachers within the econometric course
know each other very well. About our
activities: Kraket organises several formal
and informal events and activities for our
students. This year’s formal activities were Pieter Stam
the study trip to New York, our Case day Kraket
and different In-house days at important Free University
companies. When talking about informal
activities, you must think of kart racing,
making bonbons and playing football.
Nekst 4 - June 2009 
nekst4.indd 7
Vectum is the study association of the
University of Maastricht. Every year, all
members of Vectum are looking forward
to our Members’ Weekend. Around this
time of the year we will go to Kempense
Meren in Belgium in mid-June. In this
weekend we have much fun at the lakes,
where we play some entertaining games
and have a barbecue and a beer together.
It will wrap up a fun year. For those who
are leaving, either permanently or for
their exchange semester, this weekend is
Daniel Pollman a nice goodbye.
Vectum
University of Maastricht
The VSAE is the study association for students
Econometrics, Actuarial Sciences and
Operational Research Management at the
University of Amsterdam. The spectacular
project of the VSAE is the Econometric
Game which was organised for the first time
in 1999. Over the last ten years, this game
has evolved from a one day national event
to a highly respected international event
lasting three days. During the Econometric
Game 2009 this April, 26 universities like
the New York University and the University
Annelies Langelaar of Oxford, came to Amsterdam to strive for
VSAE the highest honour by trying to solve the
University of case concerning child mortality. The winner
Amsterdam of this year’s Econometric Game was the
Universidad Carlos III of Madrid.
VESTING is the study association for
Econometrics and Operations Research
in Groningen. VESTING has approximately
250 members which makes it one
of the smaller study associations for
Econometrics in the Netherlands. Despite
our relative small size, VESTING organises
a large variety of activities, congresses,
career days, socials and study trips. The
previous destination of this year’s study
trip was New York. Furthermore VESTING
Johan Sanders will celebrate her fourth lustrum in
VESTING October 2010, which will no doubt
Rijksuniversiteit incorporate some fabulous events!
Groningen
12-6-2009 11:59:41
 mp r essi v e inte r nationa l
ca r ee r in just one compan y
I nterview hein van den wildenberg at shell

Nekst was happily surprised to hear it would have the honour of interviewing a prominent employee

within Royal Dutch Shell, who it just so happened studied econometrics at Tilburg University: Hein van den

Wildenberg. Currently, Hein is located at the headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell in The Hague, where he is Head

of Planning. Nekst asked him about his career and his view on Shell in the international energy market.

Arriving at the impressive building of one of the courses in Econometrics, Nekst

Royal Dutch Shell, we were welcomed by
an employee who showed us around the
attractive ground floor of the building and
offered us a drink before our interview with
the busy Hein van den Wildenberg. After a
pleasant chat, it was finally time to meet Hein
in person.
Econometrics
Hein van den Wildenberg studied
Econometrics and Operational Research from
1984 until 1988 at the Katholieke Universiteit
van Brabant (now known as Tilburg University).
Like most of us, the combination of economics
Name: and mathematics was one of the reasons Hein
Hein van den took a course in Econometrics. Furthermore,
Wildenberg Hein was enthusiastic about studying in
Tilburg because of the good international
reputation of Tilburg University, the relatively
Position: small campus and the good career prospects
that come with a course in Econometrics.
Head of Planning at
Shell
“Econometrics helps one to develop
a ccurate anal ytical sk il ls. ”
During his studies, Hein was an active
member of the student association
‘Tilburgse Econometristen Vereniging’ ( TEV ),
now known as Asset | Econometrics. He
contributed to the book committee and also
to the second conference of the ‘Wim Bogers
Stichting’: ‘Information: the fourth factor
of production?’ When we ask Mr van den
Wildenberg about visiting the TEV drinks,
he remembers them with a smile and tells
us that one of his professors, Ben van der
Genugten, often drank a beer along with the
students. Since this professor is still teaching
wondered about the changes that have
taken place over the past 25 years and also
about what has stayed the same. Hein tells
us that some courses, like Combinatorial
Optimisation, have not changed but that
the Masters have. Van den Wildenberg: “In
my day there were four different courses
in which you could graduate: General
Econometrics, Mathematical Economics,
Business Econometrics and Operations
Research. I found both Business Econometrics
and Operations Research very interesting.”
After Hein’s internship at the department of
Corporate Planning at Royal Dutch Shell, he
graduated in Business Econometrics in his
final year. As the current Head of Planning
of Shell, he is glad he studied Econometrics:
“Econometrics helps one to develop accurate
analytical skills.”
Career
Although Hein investigated other companies
after his graduation, he decided to work at the
company where he took his internship: Royal
Dutch Shell. Hein: “What I like about Shell is
that it is a very professional and international
company. The diversity in nationalities of the
people working here is unique.” Mr van den
Wilbenberg started as a performance analyst
at Shell Pension Funds in Rijswijk. “Working
at a pension funds department is a nice start
after graduating. I believe it is good to focus
on your first job, but as an econometrician

 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 8 12-6-2009 11:59:43

 you should remember that there are
many possibilities. Therefore, instead
of saying that this was my first job, I
rather see it as the start of my entire
career.”
Even though the current Head of
Planning worked at Shell at the
beginning of his career (and still
does), he left the company for a while
to work at the Dutch Oil Company
(Nederlands Aardolie Maatschappij) in
Hoogezand-Sappemeer, a Shell-Exxon
joint venture, where he worked as a
project controller. In the meantime,
“I nve s t i g a te yourself to find a b alance
b e t we e n hard and sof t sk ills. ”
he followed a post-doctoral course
for Register Controller at the Free
University in Amsterdam.
Having gained this degree, it was time
for the next great step in his career,
which brought Hein to New York
City, where he acted as controller of
a small company that supervised the
real estate asset investments of Shell
Pension Funds in the United States.
Hein: “The United States was a very
exciting experience for me. I believe
that the main difference between
working in the Netherlands and in
New York is the difference in mentality.
In New York, the atmosphere is very
service-oriented and a lot of people
work to gain professional experience,
whilst Dutch people have a more
relaxed attitude.”
After New York, Mr van den Wildenberg
returned to the Netherlands to work
at a refinery in the town of Pernis.
Initially he was a controller, but
eventually he became the corporate
Nekst 4 - June 2009 
nekst4.indd 9
finance manager, leading a large team.
Subsequent to this job, again a career
opportunity in a foreign country
crossed Hein’s path and led him to
London. As a senior adviser in Mergers
& Acquisition in London, he worked on
great projects for three years. Hein: “I
experienced the projects of acquisition
and merging as a very important job. I
thoroughly enjoyed it.” During these
projects he travelled a lot to countries
like Russia, US and Germany. Hein
decided to stay in London to become
the Finance Manager of Shell’s sales
of jet fuel to airline companies. “As the
manager I was head of a total team of
some hundred people. This team was
a rather virtual one, as everyone was
located in many different countries.”
As of September 2007, Hein has
been back in the Netherlands and is
working as the Head of Planning of
Royal Dutch Shell at the headquarters
of this company in The Hague. In
contrast to his job in London, Hein
does not have to travel quite so much
now: “My current position is one that is
less operational and more focused on
key deliverables and projects.” As head
of a team of four, Hein tells us that his
work consists of the preparation of a
long term plan for Shell, the updating
of information about the company
and the completion of certain projects
together with his team. Van den
Wildenberg: “The fact that people
show interest in what the team delivers
gives me much pleasure in this job.”
Shell
Shell is the company where Hein van
den Wildenberg has worked for most of
his career. Shell is a well-known global
group of energy and petrochemical
companies. It has around 102,000
employees in more than 100 countries
and territories. Hein adds: “Shell
is the right company for all kinds
of academic studies. Although the
finance sector of this company is very
popular among econometricians, you
will also find employees who studied
philosophy or history, for example. The
company supports employees learning
the relevant competences. Like the
diversity in nationalities, I experience
the diversity in study backgrounds as
one of Shell’s great advantages.”
The main aim of Shell is to help to
meet the world’s growing demand for
energy in economic, environmental
and socially responsible ways. Shell
has different departments that all
contribute to achieving this goal.
One of Shell’s biggest departments
is the Business department, which
is itself divided into different sub-
departments like Exploration &
Production, Gas & Power, Oil Products,
Chemicals and Oil Sands. Besides this,
there are smaller sectors within Shell
that lend support to the Business
department. Human Resources, IT
and Global Finance are three of these
sectors. Hein van den Wildenberg
works in Global Finance in Royal Dutch
Shell. “As an econometrician, there are
a lot of opportunities and possibilities
within the finance sector of Shell. In
business finance and corporate finance
there are many roles. Also beyond
planning, there are positions in Pricing
12-6-2009 11:59:43
 All Options

nekst4.indd 10 12-6-2009 11:59:43

 Strategies, Supply Chain Management Not only the supply, but the demand “First of all: always enjoy what you are
and Statistical Analyses are also much side for this market is also important. doing. It is important to stay curious
related to the study Econometrics and Hein: “Energy users can help to and to keep showing your interest.
Operational Research.” decrease the energy demand by using Besides this, I believe that if you are
it efficiently.” an econometrician, you should not
The energy market underestimate yourself: that means
Shell has a worldwide name because Hein van den Wildenberg you can do much more than the
of its share in the energy market. Out Having lived all over the world, Hein mathematical/statistical core you
of curiosity, Nekst asked the Head van den Wildenberg has finally settled have learnt through your study. But
of Planning about the ins and outs in The Hague. He lives there with his putting effort into every job you have,
of this market. Hein: “In the energy wife and two young children. Hein: it will pay off and give you a lot of
market the price of a good, particular “My family is my greatest hobby and satisfaction. What I am actually trying
oil, is very much driven by supply and I am able to combine it perfectly with to say is: as you progress through your
demand.” Hein tells us that on the my work.”Our final question to Hein is career, investigate yourself to find a
supply side of the market, factors like whether he might have some advice balance between your hard and soft
the weather, OPEC (Organization of for econometricians. Well prepared skills.” [WP]
the Petroleum Exporting Countries) as Hein seems to be, he gave us a
supply and spare capacity and the list of advices. Van den Wildenberg:
stocks of oil are very important factors
that influence fluctuations in the price
of oil. “In order to envisage what the
future might look like, Shell invents
different scenarios for the coming
forty years. In doing so, attention has
to be paid to the so-called ‘three hard
truths’. ” Hein explains that first of all,
the demand for energy is increasing,
caused by the constant growth of the
population worldwide and countries
like China and India entering their
more energy intensive phases. The
second hard truth is that overall, in the
future, the extraction of gas or oil will
become more difficult. The final hard
truth is that environmental stresses
are increading. Whilst alternative
energy sources like solar, wind and
biofuels will become more important,
van den Wildenberg believes that the
use of fossil fuels remains important. Hein van den Wildenberg

Nekst 4 - June 2009 11

nekst4.indd 11 12-6-2009 11:59:44

 ots of fun and nice peop l e !

T apas , L ecture and drink

It all started for me when I unsuspectingly followed a course and having been beaten up by a firm portion of maths, was

enjoying my break.Suddenly,two happy girls came by and told us about‘the tapas-evening to be held next Wednesday’.

Of course, we subscribed for this evening not-to-be-missed and immediately called one of our study mates that had

just left, to tell him that he had to cancel everything for this event and that he should subscribe to it as well.

Dinner lots of spare ribs, chicken wings and some

After a long week of waiting it was finally
Wednesday. So at seven o’clock sharp we
entered Café Karel and walked into the cosy
room where everyone was busy chatting and
drinking their first beers. Some were already
dressed up for the après-ski party at Café
Babbus (more about that later). My friends
and I found ourselves a nice couch in a corner,
where we quickly joined the rest chatting
and joking, until two beautiful waitresses
came by to serve the tapas dishes. Hungry
as we were, we only managed to stay seated
for about thirty seconds before deciding to
join the queue that would eventually lead us
Name: to the Holy Grail: tapas! When we got to the
Robbert van Oosten end of the queue, we discovered the paprika
bread which proved to be a very tasty dish.
A little bit further on we found ourselves
Age: a shrimp salad, some very tasty potatoes,
18
Begin studies:
2008
extremely delicious meatballs. Stupid as I was
I took only one plate (the plates were rather
small), so I very soon ended up in the queue
again, which had grown substantially in the
meantime. Fortunately, many members faced
the same destiny, so the queuing was not
that bad at all.
Lecture & Drink
The bottom of the large tapas plates became
more visible by the minute and when we had
finished eating everything (there was really
nothing left), the time had come for us to go
to Café Babbus. Here, in our local pub, the
board of Asset | Econometrics announced
a lecture provided by Aon that would soon
follow. Three employees of Aon came to
Tilburg to inform us about the credit crunch
and about the implications this might have
for pension funds, for example how funded
rates are affected. As soon as the interesting
presentation ended, Aon offered a barrel
of beer to all the econometricians present.
The Drinks & Activities Committee had also
designed a mug, wholly in Après ski style. You
were allowed to fill it for free once you had
bought it. This added to the atmosphere and
quickly and the smiles around me became
bigger and bigger, including my own.

After much more laughing, joking, drinking,

giggling, talking and shouting the lights
went on and the music stopped playing. At
that point I suddenly realised that it might be
a good idea to go home. I could tell you a lot
more about what happened on my journey
home, but for the sake of my friends, it is best
if I keep these stories to myself. So, this was
the report of a beautiful night many more of
Students enjoying tapas which I hope will follow in the future! |

12 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 12 12-6-2009 11:59:46

 e conomet r ics in the futu r e

e x cursion aon

On 8 May a group of 36 freshmen, accompanied by two board members and two student assistants, took off to

Rotterdam to introduce the freshmen to a company where they might end up working after the completion of

their studies. The company to be visited was Aon Consulting, a firm focusing on risk management, employee

benefits and insurance.

Expectations
The freshmen were to make a case about the currently much
debated topic pensions, as this is one of the main pillars
the division we visited, Actuarial Service, focuses on. The
group was a nice mix of native and non-native students.
Although the language between these two groups differs,
they definitely had one thing in common: they all had no
came up with some original answers. Other groups with less
original yet empirically well funded answers. All together
most groups did a fine job and hence everyone could be
proud of themselves for performing so well. Once the
presentations were finished the group gathered once more
in the main room so Aon could thank the students and Asset
| Econometrics could thank Aon for their hospitality.

“Q uite a s h o c k i t m u s t h a ve b e e n to s e e s u c h a n i ce building
w i t h s u c h a m a r ve l l o u s v i e w ove r Ro t te rd a m. ”
clue what to expect, as this would be their first time to Aon must have thought that the students were rather tired
see econometrics applied in daily business. Quite a shock after solving the case, as they arranged for a fine drink along
it must have been to see such a nice building with such a with some snacks to regain strength. Also, in case the students
marvellous view over Rotterdam. Another thing that must would get tired in the future again, Aon handed over a sports
have shocked them was the fact that nothing they learned drinking bottle to all students. All in all it was a successful
in the past year was noticeable in the case Aon designed. day for all parties: students’ expectations were met, Aon got
Fortunately, the case contained a decent description about to present itself the way they wanted to and hence study
how the Dutch pension system works. The freshmen, divided association Asset | Econometrics is satisfied. [EvE]
into groups and put into several very nice looking rooms,
received some additional explanation about the three well-
known pillars and about the differences between a Defined
Benefit scheme and a Defined Contribution scheme. As if this
were not enough, several technical terms, such as ‘accrual
rate’ and ‘salary offset’, were introduced. After the necessary
habituation most groups started working hard on trying to
find the answers to the somewhat tough questions. Not only
because the winning group would receive much respect from
the other groups, but also because the freshmen wanted to
show off the extraordinary skills Tilburgian econometricians
possess.

Results
The day grew older and raindrops made place for beautiful
sunbeams that fell into the Rotterdam office. Meanwhile the
students whipped of their sweat that appeared because of
the hard working so they could finish the case which they
were to present in front of other groups. Several groups Freshmen working on the Aon case

Nekst 4 - June 2009 13

nekst4.indd 13 12-6-2009 11:59:47

 he futu r e of economet r ics
& O R at ti l b u r g uni v e r sit y
changes in the bachelor and master programmes
Many of you may have received some signals that changes are going to be carried through in the bachelor
and master programmes of Econometrics & OR. In this article we will explain why the programmes are going
to be changed, which changes are going to be carried through and how you, as a student, may be affected by
these changes.
Why changing the programme?
A number of reasons have led us to reconsider
our programmes. First of all the Faculty of
Economics and Business Administration (FEB)
decided to change its portfolio of master
programmes as of September 2010. For us this
was a good opportunity to let this happen
simultaneously with changes that we already
had in mind for our master programmes:
considerably changing the contents of the
ORMS master, making the MEEM master
more appealing and creating a possibility for
bachelor students Econometrics & OR to follow
a master track in Quantitative Marketing.
Name:
When changing the contents of the master
Henk Norde programmes however, it is inevitable that
the contents of many (preparing) bachelor
Position: courses have to be adjusted as well.
Academic Director Secondly, during the last decade many
BSc Econometrics & changes have been carried through in high
OR and MSc MEEM school (think for example of the introduction
of the ‘studiehuis’ and the changes in
contents and contact hours of the high
school mathematics courses). These changes
definitely did not result in an easier transition
from high school to university, at least not
for the more quantitative programmes like
Econometrics & OR. Therefore adjustments
have to be made in the first year of the
bachelor programme in order to smoothen
this transition.
Finally we would like to stress that the
currently taught programmes have been
introduced in the academic year 2000-2001,
Name: so nine years ago. Since then, the programme
Edwin van Dam has changed hardly, even not when the
bachelor-master structure was introduced in
2002. So, it is time for a thorough checkup.
Position:
Academic Director
MSc’s ORMS and QFAS
14 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 14
Which changes will be carried through?
The sequence of courses Mathematical
Analysis 1, 2 and 3 (6+3+6 ECTS) has
been reordered as Proofs and Techniques,
Mathematical Analysis 1 and 2 (3+6+6 ECTS).
In Proofs and Techniques students should
get a first training in abstract reasoning.
Moreover, this course is meant to smoothen
the transition from high school to university.
Subjects are, amongst others: elementary
proof techniques, the principle of induction,
geometry, set theory, and algebraic skills.
Mathematical Analysis 1 will focus on
functions of one variable, Mathematical
Analysis 2 on functions of more variables.
The complete track of operations research
courses (from the ‘old’ first year course
Modelling in Business Administration until
the ORMS master courses) is going to be
reorganised.
There will be more recognisable tracks in
econometrics (Introduction Econometrics,
Econometrics 1 and 2) and mathematical
economics (Micro-economics, Introduction
Mathematical Economics, Mathematical
Economics and Game Theory) in the bachelor
programme with a clear follow-up in the
master programme MEEM. Students in MEEM
should be able to follow either a track in
econometrics or a track in mathematical
economics. Courses with a hybrid setup like
Orientation Econometrics (half econometrics,
half finance) and Orientation MEEM (half
econometrics and half mathematical
economics) should no longer be offered.
The course Accounting disappears. Instead, in
the third year there will be room for specialised
12-6-2009 11:59:48
 electives such as accounting and
marketing.
In the third year of the bachelor
programme there is a completely new
course Object Oriented Programming
and Databases. Dealing with databases
(important amongst others for
students in operations research and
econometrics) and programming in C
(important for students in finance) are
essential ingredients of this course.
The different tracks in the master
programmes (econometrics,
mathematical economics, operations
research, quantitative finance and
actuarial science, quantitative
Year 1 (as of September 2009)
Unit 1
Linear Algebra (6 ECTS)
Macroeconomics for EOR (6 ECTS)
Proofs and Techniques (3 ECTS)
Unit 2
Mathematical Analysis 1 (6 ECTS)
Linear Optimization (6 ECTS)
IT skills (3 ECTS)
Unit 3
Mathematical Analysis 2 (6 ECTS)
Microeconomics for EOR (6 ECTS)
Introduction to Probability Theory (3
ECTS)
Unit 4
Introduction Econometrics (6 ECTS)
Probability and Statistics (6 ECTS)
Introduction Finance (3 ECTS)
New division of the courses in the bachelor programme
Nekst 4 - June 2009 15
nekst4.indd 15
marketing) will become more
recognisable and overlap between
different tracks will be reduced to a
minimum.
In the margin you will find the details
of the new bachelor programme
Econometrics & OR.
What do I, as a student, notice from
these changes?
The new bachelor programme starts in
September 2009. That is, the first year
of the new programme will be offered
for the first time in the academic year
2009-2010, the second year of the new
programme for the first time in 2010-
2011 and the third year of the new
Year 2 (as of September 2010)
Semester 1
Advanced Linear Algebra (6 ECTS)
Introduction Mathematical Finance and
Insurance (6 ECTS)
Computer Programming for EOR Object Oriented Programming and
(6 ECTS)
Statistics (6 ECTS)
Stochastic Operations Research Models Risk Theory (6 ECTS)
(6 ECTS)
Semester 2
Differentiation and Integration Theory
(6 ECTS)
Econometrics 1 (6 ECTS)
Introduction Mathematical Economics
(6 ECTS)
Modeling in Practice (6 ECTS)
Philosophy of Economics (6 ECTS)
programme for the first time in 2011-
2012. As a consequence, the first year
of the old programme will no longer
be offered, the second year of the old
programme will be offered for the last
time in 2009-2010 and the third year
of the old programme for the last time
in 2010-2011. For all courses which
cease to exist in the new programme
there will be two extra exams. Soon, a
letter will be sent to all students with
the changes in detail in the first year
of the programme. Next fall a second
information letter will be sent around
with the changes in detail in the
second and third year of the bachelor
programme and with the changes in
the master programme. |
Year 3 (as of September 2011)
Semester 1
Combinatorial Optimization (6 ECTS)
Econometrics 2 (6 ECTS)
Game Theory (6 ECTS)
Databases (6 ECTS)
Quantitative Finance (6 ECTS)
Social Philosophy (6 ECTS)
Semester 2
Asset Liability Management (6 ECTS)
Bachelor Thesis (12 ECTS)
Inventory and Production Management
(6 ECTS)
Life Insurance (6 ECTS)
Local Search Methods (6 ECTS)
Mathematical Economics (6 ECTS)
12-6-2009 11:59:48
 Aon

nekst4.indd 16 12-6-2009 11:59:48

 s hou l d the economet r ics
p r og r amme b e changed ?
opinion poll

Some of you might know that changes in the bachelor and master programmes are going to be carried

through. Because of the changes in the master, some bachelor courses had to be changed as well. Also some

adjustments have to be made to ensure a smooth transition from secondary school to the first year of the

bachelor programme. So what do students enrolled in Econometrics think of these changes? Is it about time

the bachelor programme was changed?

Annick Traa [Master student] Paul Peters [Second year student]

Definitely, the educational system in the Netherlands is
changing constantly and the bachelor Econometrics & OR
should change too in order to allow for a smooth transition
from secondary school to university. However, one should not
forget to safeguard the quality of Econometrics graduates
at the end of the programme. Therefore I regret that part
of the fundamental courses of Mathematical Analysis has
been taken out. However, I have always considered the
Accounting course to have little connection to the rest of
Econometrics and I am sure this course will not be missed in
the curriculum.
Altogether I think the changes were inevitable because of
the gap between secondary school and university level,
but I would rather have seen the level at secondary school
improved, than the entrance level of the bachelor programme
lowered to close this gap.
Iris Mehlkopf [Fourth year student]
I think it is, yes. Everyone knows that the knowledge students
have of mathematics has decreased over the last years. This
makes the transition from secondary school to university
harder. Of course, it would be better to improve the level of
mathematics at secondary school. However, since this is not
likely to happen, a change in the bachelor programme would
be the second best option.
Another motivation to change the bachelor programme
might be changes in the master programme. I am less
happy with these changes. The, in my opinion, unpopular
master course ‘Mathematical Economics’ and ‘Econometrics
Methods’ (MEEM) will be split into two parts. By doing this,
the department hopes this side of Econometrics will gain
in popularity, but I strongly doubt this. I think students
are simply more interested in other fields, like Finance and
Operational Research.
For most of the new students, there will not be a problem
with the new set-up for the bachelor programme, because
they have no knowledge about the previous contents of
the study. Therefore the only thing that matters is whether
there will be an improvement in the level of education. Many
professors have thought about such adjustments and the
main reason for the adjustments in the bachelor phase is
because of the coming changes in the master phase.
In the end, it seems to be a good idea to ‘pimp’ the bachelor
and master phase. Nevertheless, it is still very important
that all these changes, including the internationalisation
of the entire university, coincide with extra attention for
the students. Students have to adapt themselves to this
new adjustment as well, especially those who are already
studying Econometrics & Operations Research. So as long as
students are well informed about all the changes and there
are sufficient means to help them, the adjustment of the
bachelor phase will be an improvement to the study.
Robbert van Oosten [Freshman]
Because the bachelor is between secondary school and the
master, the bachelor should be adapted to both of them.
Pupils coming from secondary school must be able to take
the bachelor with their knowledge and on the other hand,
students who have gained their bachelor have to be ready to
continue with the master. So if the level of what pupils learn
at high school changes, the bachelor should be adapted as
well. This happened in 1998 with the introduction of the
‘Studiehuis’ and will happen again in a year’s time with the
new mathematical courses ‘Wiskunde C’ and ‘Wiskunde D’.
So if you look at it that way, the change is too late and at
the same time too early. With the changes of the master
programmes after Econometrics in the following years,
however, the adaption of the bachelor is just in time.|

Nekst 4 - June 2009 17

nekst4.indd 17 12-6-2009 11:59:48

 ases fo r c l e v e r peop l e
E conometric game 2 0 0 9
You may not know it, but there is a thing called the Econometric Game. It has been around for eleven years now,
starting as a small competition of teams from six Dutch universities in 1999 and becoming an international
event attended by 27 teams from three continents in April 2009.
The Econometric Game is a competition
for graduate students coming from all over
the world. Every team consists of two PhD
students and three students in final phases
of their master studies, which in the case
of Tilburg University comes down to either
second year Mphil students or final year
students of the Econometrics programme. This
year, we, Luc Bissonnette and David Vonka,
both from the Econometrics Department,
joined as PhD’s and Georgios Petropoulos,
Simone Sadzeviciute and Janos Zsiros (all
from the Mphil Economics programme) were
our team’s master students. As you can guess
from the names, our team included no Dutch
Name: students, which can be interpreted as either
David Vonka very cool (we are so international here in
Tilburg) or very sad (the Dutch students do
not care).
Position:
PhD student The Econometric Game works as follows.
There is one introductory day. The second
day all teams work on case number one for
nine hours. All teams deliver a paper. The jury
reads the papers and selects ten teams for the
finals. On the third day, the finalists compete
on case number two. From these, the top
three teams are selected and announced.
All the teams stay in hotels near the
Amsterdam ZOO, where the competition
takes place. On the first morning, participants
assemble in the building of the University
of Amsterdam to see the presentations of
the case-makers. This year’s case was mostly
written under the supervision of professor
Jan Kiviet, from the University of Amsterdam.
These first presentations are not very detailed;
they give a fair picture of the cases, but no
precise formulation of the question and no
description of the datasets that will be used
on the following days. This lack of information
and the lack of a decent Internet connection
made it hard to really start working. We had to
18 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 18
limit ourselves to the few papers suggested
by the case-makers.
The real work began on day two. The first case
dealt with child mortality in India. We were
asked to analyse the link between fertility of a
family and the number of children the family
has lost. The case-makers were interested
in causal relationships, which made the
case rather challenging. We came up with
a solution, which we would not hesitate to
call original. We still argue, whether it was
the completely stupid kind of original, or the
genius kind of original. Both our positions on
this issue changed a few times, but original
it was. Anyway, the work ended at 18.00
hours. Thereafter, a rich social programme
begun, including a huge dinner, talking to
all the people and rather impressive amount
of drinks. At 22.00 hours, the jury met us in
a bar and announced the ten finalists, which
included our team. To be completely honest,
after a day of nervous preparation and another
nine hours of frenetic work on the first case,
we were not unambiguously happy about
becoming a finalist. A free day in Amsterdam
sounded more like a reward than another
case. Still, it is not bad to beat teams from
places like London School of Economics, New
York University or the University of Oxford.
It is interesting to mention that the list of
finalists was not a list of expected names
only. It included among others two Eastern
European universities ( Warsaw and Budapest)
and a business school from Norway.
The third day’s case brought the finalists
to Brazil, where the effects of a poverty
programme had to be analysed using panel
data on Brazilian regions and policy advice
had to be given. In contrast to the first case,
the case-makers had a concrete solution
method in mind. Teams without reasonable
12-6-2009 11:59:49
 knowledge of dynamic panel data
were in trouble. The time-span was an
hour shorter and included not only
writing a paper, but also preparing a
presentation. When finished, all the
teams assembled at the university
again to hear the presentations of
all teams. Luc, who was unwillingly
volunteered by the rest of us to
present the case, had to go just after
an overenthusiastic presenter from
University of Aarhus. He still managed
to give a talk decent enough to earn the
comment “You are a business student,
aren’t you?” from fellow participants. It
is unclear if it was meant as a way to
decry his econometric knowledge or
to praise his salesman’s skills.
The representatives of Tilburg University
Thereafter, the jury went reading and
the participants went partying. The
winners (Carlos III, Madrid) were again
announced in a bar. The top three
included Maastricht on second place
and Cambridge on third place. Our
team did not make it, but if we can
guess from all the presentations we
saw, we placed ourselves around the
Nekst 4 - June 2009 19
nekst4.indd 19
median of the finalist group. We had a
beer, went back to Tilburg and spent a
day sleeping it all off.
Tilburg University has been
participating in this game for many
years now and certainly, there will
be a team next year. So let us devote
the rest of our 1200 words to a few
observations and maybe some advice.
First of all, all potential participants
should know that the participation
does not cost the students anything.
The department pays one part of the
bill and the sponsors (ING this year)
pay the rest.
Secondly, the game requires skill
and speed from the participants. The
defining feature of the game is the
time limit. You need to be able to come
up with a solution strategy, carry it
out and write your solution up nicely
in approximately eight hours. Good
orientation in standard econometric
methods matters. You can use any
books, but no-one in the team is aware
of an econometric problem, the team
is in trouble. Mastering an econometric
software package is a huge plus. It
should be Stata or Eviews, the case-
makers tend to make sure that the
cases are solvable by any of these two
packages. There is not much time for
Matlab kind of programming. At least
one of the members of the team should
be very confident in English.
It is surprisingly difficult to distribute
the work among the five team
members. The future teams should
definitely spend more time preparing
and working as a team than we did. We
believe it is impossible to succeed if all
team member work together on one
aspect of the case. In a perfect world,
someone does the summary statistics,
someone writes introductions,
someone solves the core problem, all
happening simultaneously. Be careful
when selecting the team leader. Too
late we found out than our designate
leader David is not able to supervise
others while working himself.
All teams face an interesting dilemma
about spending the “free time”. There
is preparation for the next day and
there is the great opportunity to
meet people from all over the world.
The 2009 teams displayed a wealth of
strategies, ranging from some of the
British teams, which did not leave the
hotel room, to some of the American
teams, which did not leave the pub. We
were trying to follow the golden middle
way. Still, looking back, it would have
improved our performance to prepare
more in the evenings and drink less.
To conclude, the Econometric Game
is exhausting, but definitely fun.
Please consider applying for team
membership next year. It is not bad
for your CV either. Last but not least,
based on what we saw in April, a top
three placement is not out of reach
for a well-prepared team from Tilburg
University. |
12-6-2009 11:59:55
 hings i do r emem b e r a b out
the am w
active members weekend
It must have been a strange sight for people around Tilburg Central Station on the afternoon of Friday 24 April:
a group of about thirty active members, dressed in various bright colours and carrying big bags, gathered in
front of this station. Enthusiasm radiated from their faces. The air was crystal clear, the temperature had risen
to 20°C. It was the start of the Active Members Weekend (AMW), the one-and-only, should-have-experienced-
so-try-before-you-die weekend.
This year’s AMW was different from previous
ones: this edition was in fact a huge competition
between teams (referred to as the Asset |
Econometric games). Those teams could earn
points with activities during the weekend. The
ultimate goal was, of course, to win the Asset
| Econometric games. Right from the start of
the weekend, one could feel the tension of
competition. There were five teams: Purple,
Green, Orange, Red, and Blue. Most people
would say that these are the names of colours,
but team Blue gave their own interpretation to
their name: Best Linear Unbiased Estimator. Ok,
we are still econometricians…and please be
Name: so kind as not to ask me what it means! Yours
truly was a member of the Orange team.
Harold van Heijst
Age:
20 “J aa zeit ie!”
Begin studies:
Nobody, except for the organising committee,
2007 had a clue where we were going. After we had
received a picnic lunch, we headed for a coach
going to Oirschot, a little village about twenty
kilometres to the south-east of the fantastic
city of Tilburg. The first activity was a picture
trail in Oirschot. The teams had to walk a course
following places that were on the pictures.
During the walk questions had to be answered.
Some questions were trivial in such a way
that they could best be considered as bonus
points, but to find out the answer for some
others, we really had to expand our common
knowledge and get some help from the locals.
Fortunately, the locals were so kind as to help
us to answer some questions, although we
sometimes had trouble understanding their
dialect. More importantly, they were so kind as
not to help the other groups.
20 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 20
There were several activities on the way. One of
those activities was rope pulling and our team
was able, for the first time, to prove that we
really were as strong as orange lions. We had
to take up arms against team Purple. Maybe
it was the heat, maybe it was the tension of
the battle or maybe it was the fact that the
other team could brace their selves against
the curb? Unfortunately, our team was beaten.
No worries, there were a lot of activities ahead
of us.
After the picture trail, we walked to the
beautiful accommodation the AMW-committee
had picked for us: Kampeerboerderij Van
Pinksteren. For some, this location was well-
known, because the KOALA (Kansloos Oud
Actief Leden Activiteit) also took place here.
For others, the location should have been
familiar, but they couldn’t quite remember
whether they had been there or not. Our group
stayed in accommodation ‘Het Fluitenkruid’.
There were about 50 beds divided among two
huge bedrooms. The distribution of active
members among the two rooms was rather
skewed (the committee took one of the huge
rooms for themselves). But that was not really
a problem, because everyone knew that the
beds were only for decoration.
One of the many traditions of the AMW is
eating pasta on Friday evening. Of course,
one obeyed this tradition. With well-filled
stomachs, we went back on the road for the
next activity. This activity was ‘farmer’s golf ’, a
rather strange modification to normal golf. First
of all, you don’t play with a golf ball, but with
a little street soccer ball. Secondly, you have to
hit the ball with a stick with a clog attached to
it. How on earth was this invented? And finally,
this game is not played on fresh-cut grass. In
fact, the grass came up to our ankles! A very
12-6-2009 11:59:55
 friendly man explained the rules of the
game to us: “Try to hit the ball into the
hole with as few strokes as possible.
And do not aim at the cows!” And by
that, our affinity with cows was once
again tested. We were divided into
groups and played this funny game for
about two hours.
When we arrived back at the
accommodation, some other active
members joined the group. It was about
to become a wonderful evening: VVV-
Venlo had just become champion of the
Jupiler League. Since Venlo is the town
that supplies most Econometricians (as
shown in the Almanak, page 127), this
Active members feeling at home on the playground
Nekst 4 - June 2009 21
nekst4.indd 21
was worth a celebration.
Paul, dressed-up in a suit, was the
presenter of the beer cantus. It goes
without saying that a lot of Brabant
songs passed the review. The traditional
“1,2,3, zaufen, lass das Bier mal laufen!”,
was extended with VVV is champion,
PSV next year, and finally disapproving
growls from the Ajax fans. After a couple
of songs (and beers), people were no
longer able to stand still, result: the
conga. After the cantus, the conviviality
continued. Kingzen (another famous
tradition) and table football were
played. In the early hours everyone
found their way to their beds.
Only a few minutes later we were kindly
awoken by the committee. Every team
had tasks and our task was to prepare a
delicious breakfast. No sooner said than
done! By ten o’clock we were outside in
our sportswear, it was another beautiful
day. In several sports, teams could, once
again, compete against each other. The
war between the teams now really let
loose. Like a lion sneaks up on a grazing
gazelle and then strikes it down with a
single blow, my Orange team effortlessly
defeated the opposing team in Dodge
ball. It didn’t show that we had hardly
slept. The soccer games between the
teams were played equally fanatically.
The Blue team savagely - yet precisely
12-6-2009 11:59:58
 Watson Wyatt

nekst4.indd 22 12-6-2009 11:59:58

 - took down some of the best players,
like Ajax slaying the Trojans, ensuring
themselves two victories. Here and there
a massive wham was dealt in order to
capture the ball. These were the Asset
| Econometric games in optima forma!
Of course, we were all sportsmen,
contrary to Zinedine Zidane and hence,
after the games we all shook hands.
The organising committee arranged a
huge ‘buikschuifbaan’ (freely, though
likely wrongly but hopefully funnily
translated as ‘Belly Slide Job’) of about
25 metres. We had great fun on this
slide. Homage to Pascal who even made
it to the end of the slide!
In the afternoon, we took the bus to
Eindhoven. We were going to swim,
or just relax at the swimming pool,
Ir Ottenbad. Some of us seized the
opportunity to take a rest in the warm
water of the Jacuzzi, having a good
chat. Others still had enough energy
to fight a water battle in order to gain
monopoly over a floating mat. Once
one had captured such a floating unit
for himself, one tried to stand on it,
shouting: “Ja zeit ie!”.
On our way back to the accommodation,
we sat in a camera-equipped bus.
But the cameras on the bus couldn’t
Rik van Beers has been flipped over
Nekst 4 - June 2009 23
nekst4.indd 23
stop us from misbehaving. At every
roundabout we yelled “rondje, rondje!”
(round, round!). The friendly bus driver
eventually buckled under the tumult.
The locals in the bus looked somewhat
surprised when the bus, amid our
cheers, drove around the roundabout
twice.
In the early evening, it was time for
the barbecue. Everyone, except the
vegetarians, enjoyed the well-grilled
meat. Whitney, Emy and Pascal were
granted the honorary title: Juneor of
Barbecue Masters.
Before the AMW, every group was
given the task to write a love letter for
Stèphanie, create a banner for Rik van
Beers, bring a sack of ice for Paul Peters
and boxer shorts for Emile. Now it was
the time to hand those ‘presents’ over to
the organisers of the weekend, as they
were to judge them. The love letters
varied from epic poetry to somewhat
more easily understandable ‘poetry’.
The banners for Rik were all very
praising of his divine character and the
Blue group had even brought a sack
of ‘Raketjes’ for Paul. The boxer shorts
for Emile were very confusing, since
they estimated his humongous trouser
thingy with a rather big deviation. Of
course, Emile decided that the winning
boxer shorts were the ones with a sock
attached to the front.
In the evening, we went to Eindhoven
again by bus. At Laser Quest Eindhoven
we played an exciting laser game for
about twenty minutes. Perspiring, we
came out of the battle zone, curious
about our scores. We were all ready for
a refreshing drink. In Stratumseind we
went to Café Santé. Little by little this
Café was turned into a carrousel of
‘conga dancing’ econometricians.
Having all been brought back home by
taxis, the committee had ensured that
we could enjoy a spattered, brown or
white egg. While waiting for everyone
else to go to bed, some members tried
to empty the fridge, which they failed to
do. Admiration for the stock-managing
skills of the committee. Finally, they
tried to flip over the mattresses of
some members, who did seem to be
asleep. It’s a shame that their vision
was clouded and they didn’t very much
succeed in honouring this tradition, to
start with. Apparently, they were also
of this opinion and so they snuck up
to the bedroom a second time, which
resulted in a successful, 180 degrees
flip over of Rik.
The next morning, the moment that
everyone had been waiting for, had
finally arrived: the presentation of the
winner of the Asset | Econometrics
games. Team Green managed to collect
the most points during the weekend,
therefore this team was the winner.
Eternal glory awaits Elske, Nicole,
Dennis, Stefan and Wilbert, at least
until next year.
Lars van Heijst got himself the so-called
‘discouraging prize’, and he was content
with it. After some final cleaning, we
headed back to Tilburg.
I want to seize the opportunity to thank
the AMW committee, on behalf of all
the active members, for a fantastic
weekend! Well done! |
12-6-2009 12:00:03
 t ’ s economics , stupid ! ”

column

On 4 July, the Tour de France, the yearly high mass of cycling, will kick off in Monaco. The three weeks that

follow will, without any doubt, couple the beautiful scenery of waving corn fields to knife-edge heroic duels

in the Alps or the Pyrenees. Old saints will be celebrated while new martyrs will enter the scene.

Like in many religions, though, there will
also be beings who bedevil and put to the
test the righteous ones. Indeed, the list of
fallen angels is all too long: Jan Ullrich, Floyd
Landis, Ivan Basso, Michael Rasmussen and
Alexandre Vinokourov are only a few top
favourites who took drugs and were caught in
the more recent editions of la Grande Boucle.
Some people claim that cycling is simply too
game who behave strategically while taking
account of the other players’ actions. They
take strategic decisions that should lead to
the, for them, best possible outcome of the
game.
Let us assume that there are only two cyclists
in the peloton. Although the following
simple example can be easily generalised in

“Doping in cycling can be considered as a game

that can be analysed by means of game theory.”
Name:
Frederic Vermeulen
heavy to be practised without any drugs.
Position: I am not sure about this. Therefore, I would
Associate professor like to propose an alternative economics-
based explanation for the massive number
of drug cheats in cycling (and other sports
as well of course) and come up with some
(quite obvious) policy advice that may help
defeating the drug cheats that spoil the most
beautiful sport on earth.
Doping in cycling can be considered as a
game that can be analysed by means of
game theory. Cyclists are the players in the
a number of directions, it suffices to illustrate
the mechanism behind drug taking. The
table below summarises all the information
that we need to analyse this game. The table,
called a pay-off matrix, gives for each player
the pay-offs for all the possible strategies of
the different players. Assume that the pay-
offs are measured in terms of the number of
races won in a career. Four different situations
can be distinguished. In the first situation,
both Cyclist A and Cyclist B, who are equally
talented, are taking drugs. The outcome in this
situation is that both cyclists were 10 times

Cyclist B

Takes drugs Does not take drugs

Cyclist A Takes drugs (Cyclist A: 10, Cyclist B:10) (Cyclist A: 13, Cyclist B:7)

Does not take drugs (Cyclist A: 7, Cyclist B:13) (Cyclist A: 12, Cyclist B:12)

24 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 24 12-6-2009 12:00:03

 victorious in their respective careers.
A second situation is characterised
by the fact that both cyclists compete
against each without taking any doping
products. It is well possible that both
cyclists are then able to obtain more
victories than in the situation where
both take drugs; for example because
not taking harmful products prolongs
their careers. In the final two situations,
one of the cyclists cheats while the
other one stays clean. The sinner is
rewarded with 13 victories, while the
fair one only obtains 7 victories.
Now it is easily checked that the
situation where both cyclists take
drugs is the solution of the game. This
solution is a Nash equilibrium. In the
example, taking drugs is a dominant
strategy for both cyclists: irrespective
To u r d e F r a n c e
Nekst 4 - June 2009 25
nekst4.indd 25
of what the other cyclist does, it is
more profitable to cheat. If Cyclist
B takes drugs, then it is in Cyclist’s
A interest to take drugs as well: this
obtains 10 victories compared to only
7 by staying clean. Also in the situation
where Cyclist B is clean, it pays off
to take drugs for Cyclist A. A similar
analysis can be made for Cyclist B. We
can therefore expect that the situation
where both cyclists take drugs is the
solution of the game. Importantly,
both cyclists would be better off by
cooperating: both would obtain 12
victories compared to the 10 in the
Nash equilibrium. In other words,
taking drugs is not a Pareto efficient
situation.
What can we now learn from game
theory? Well, if we would generalise
the above simplified game with a
probability of being caught while taking
drugs and an associated penalty, then
it would be easily seen that increasing
the fine or the probability of being
caught has the potential of changing
the current equilibrium where all
cyclists take drugs to an alternative
doping-free equilibrium. Based on
such an analysis, the new policy
instruments of unannounced drug
controls and the biological passport
seem quite effective in the battle
against drugs since they increase the
probability of catching the cheaters.
If these devices would be combined
with more adequate penalties, and
here game theory may come into play,
then it may even be possible to enjoy
the Tour again with a childish naivite
in the near future. |
12-6-2009 12:00:04
 y ing o r t r uth - te l l ing : w h y
does it matte r in economics ?
scientific article

As buyers or sellers in different markets,we negotiate prices and quantities.In the process,we often communicate

and share information with each other. Hence the question arises; does our communication lead to more efficient

outcomes? Although we might intuitively expect so, under the standard theoretical framework in economics this

assumption does not necessarily hold. Even if buyers have no reason to mislead sellers, the latter might believe

they do and hence ignore their messages. However recent research suggests that individuals prefer to be

truthful and messages are often believed; thus communication can have an important impact on outcomes.

Communication is present in many of our individuals communicate their intended choices

economic interactions. Despite its relevance,
it is often difficult to predict the effect
of communication on outcomes. Since
communication is costless, discussions about
intentions or an individual’s private information
are not necessarily credible. However, recent
research shows that individuals often exhibit
an aversion to lying and are willing to forgo
monetary payoffs for true statements. These
before a game (for example, in coordination
games and social dilemmas). On the other
hand, it examines the transmission of private
information between informed and uninformed
agents. We will concentrate on the latter strand
of the literature and work through an example.
Imagine you want to buy a second-hand car. You
go to a seller who has two apparently identical
cars for sale. Suppose one car is labelled A

“S i n ce co m m u n i ca t i o n i s co s t l e s s, discussions
Name: a b o u t i n te n t i o n s a re n o t n e ce s s a ri l y credible. ”
Marta Serra-Garcia

findings shed a new light on the role of while the other is labelled B. You know one car
Position: communication in economic interactions and is of good quality and worth 100 to you, while
PhD student support its potential in determining economic the other is of bad quality and worth 0 to you.
outcomes. Unfortunately, you cannot tell which car is

Current location: Payoff to seller Payoff to buyer

New York City
High-quality car sold 50 50

Low-quality car sold 50 -50

Ta b l e 1 : P a y o f f s i n g a m e 1

In this article, we first discuss a strand of
the literature, which focuses on individual’s
preferences for truth-telling. Then we argue
how these preferences can, under some
circumstances, lead to more precise predictions
regarding the role of communication in
economic interactions.
what quality, but the seller does know. Suppose
the price of both cars is 50 and the seller earns a
fixed wage of 50. Whatever car he sells you, he
will earn 50 but you will only earn 50 if it is the
high-quality car and lose 50 otherwise. Table 1
summarises the payoffs in this game, which we
will call game 1.

The literature on communication is quite wide. Imagine the seller tells you that ‘Car A is of better
On the one hand, it studies communication in quality’. Would you believe him? He has no
situations of symmetric information, in which incentive to lie, since he earns the same amount

26 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 26 12-6-2009 12:00:06

 of money whatever car he sells. Thus,
you have reasons to believe him and
buy car A. Now, imagine someone told
you the seller is a compulsive liar and
enjoys misleading buyers. Would you
believe him now? If this is the case, you
might doubt his statement and decide
to ignore it. If you do, you will buy the
‘good’ car with a probability of a half,
while with the same probability, you
might end up with the ‘bad’ car. Your
expected payoff is then 0. If you are
slightly risk averse, you might refuse
to buy any car. Thus, in this case, the
seller’s statements become irrelevant
to your decision and also irrelevant in
terms of monetary payoffs for him.
Hence this simple example shows
that we often do not have a
precise prediction about the role
of communication in economic
interactions. In the first case, the high-
quality car is sold and both seller and
buyer are better off. In the second
case, the transaction might never take
place and efficiency gains might be
forgone. Furthermore both outcomes
are possible within game 1.
Things can get worse, if we slightly
modify game 1. Suppose that the
seller’s wage is equal to the profit
made by selling the car. More precisely,
the low-quality car is worth 0 to him
while the high-quality one is worth
30. By selling the low-quality car,
the seller earns 50, while selling the
high-quality one earns him 20. Table
2 shows the payoffs in this situation,
called game 2. If the seller only cares
about his own payoffs, what will he
say? He will probably try to mislead
you into buying the low-quality car.
Payoff to seller
High-quality car sold 20
Low-quality car sold 50
Ta b l e 2 : P a y o f f s i n g a m e 2
Nekst 4 - June 2009 27
nekst4.indd 27
Did you make a good deal?
Given these incentives, you have no
reason to believe his statements. Your
expected payoff is then 0 and you might
end up not buying a car at all. Thus,
communication in game 2 is irrelevant
to the transaction’s outcome.
However, what happens if we assume
individuals have a preference for truth
telling? Well, under this assumption
you will believe the seller and buy the
high-quality car in game 1. In game 2,
you might also be willing to believe
the seller, if his aversion to lying is
stronger than the 30 monetary units
he forgoes by telling the truth. Thus,
individuals’ aversion to lying can help
us make sharper predictions about
individuals’ communication and its
impact on outcomes.
Recent studies have shown that
individuals often exhibit an aversion
Payoff to buyer
50
-50
to lying. Gneezy (2005) conducted an
experimental study among university
students in Israel. He found that many
students are willing to forgo monetary
payoffs and tell the truth. Interestingly,
he also found that as the gains for
the informed player (the seller, in our
example) for lying increase, individuals
lie more often. On the contrary, when
the harm from lying to the uninformed
player increases, individuals lie
significantly less often. Other studies
in the literature, as Sánchez-Pagés
and Vorsatz (2007), have found further
evidence of lying aversion in similar
situations.
Interestingly, this experimental
evidence has also been incorporated
into theoretical models of
communication. Demichelis and
Weibull (2008) have developed a model
in which they assume that individuals
have lexicographic preferences for
truth-telling. That is, if a payoff can
be achieved via a truthful and an
untruthful message, the former is
preferred. They study communication
before a specific class of coordination
games, in which two players want to
coordinate which decision to make.
Generally speaking, they then show
that, under such preferences, the only
12-6-2009 12:00:06
 APG

nekst4.indd 28 12-6-2009 12:00:06

 “Avers i o n to l y i n g h e l p s u s to m a ke s h a r p e r p re d i c tions. ”

evolutionarily stable equilibrium in do not tell the truth? This cost could from experimental research and
these games is Pareto-efficient. also be dependent on the monetary theoretical modelling will be needed.
payoffs obtained by lying, if the lie Furthermore it is the dialogue between
This literature is very recent and many is thought to be trustworthy. To find them that will probably result in the
questions still remain unanswered. the answers to these questions, both most relevant answers. |
One of the most interesting questions empirical evidence, mainly stemming
consists of investigating the strength of
individuals’ lying aversion. As we have
seen in game 2, lying aversion can lead
the seller to be truthful and the buyer
to buy the car, only if the costs of lying
are ‘high enough’. Further experimental
studies could investigate the strength
of lying aversion in different economic
interactions, allowing us to have a
better understanding of when it is
relevant. This could lead to a better
prediction power regarding the
impact of communication in economic
interactions.

Overall, communication might not

be irrelevant to economic outcomes
and thus efficiency, if we consider
individuals’ preferences for truth-
telling. However, doing so poses
further challenges. How should we
model lying aversion? Could it be
simply modelled as a utility cost,
which individuals suffer when they Would you buy this car?

References
Gneezy, U. (2005). Deception: The Role of Consequences, American Economic Review, 95(1), 384-394.
Sánchez-Pagés, S. and Vorsatz, M. (2007). An experimental study of truth-telling in sender-receiver games, Games and Economic Behavior, 61,
86-112.
Demichelis, S. and Weibull, J. W. (2008). Language, Meaning, and Games: A Model of Communication, Coordination, and Evolution, American
Economic Review, 98(4), 1292-1311.

Nekst 4 - June 2009 29

nekst4.indd 29 12-6-2009 12:00:07

 Deloitte

nekst4.indd 30 12-6-2009 12:00:07

 B ikes and food

C ycling dinner

A few weeks ago it was time for the cycling dinner. Every participant was placed in a group of two and had to

prepare a course so one would end up eating each course at someone else’s place with another group. This

is a very nice way to meet some other econometricians, especially for freshmen. I was placed in a group with

Tess Beukers.

We were to prepare a dessert. Because it was
such nice weather, we decided to make a white
chocolate strawberry tiramisu. After doing
some shopping for all the ingredients we
tried to concoct it. Because neither of us had
ever made it before, we just had an attempt
at it and were quite surprised that it tasted so
good. Our first course was at Emile van Elen’s
place. The sun was shining, so the first thing
we did after we arrived was drink a glass of flat
TEV wine on the balcony. Emile and Yvonne
Blom served a delicious Carpaccio with salad
and a dressing. This was of course a very good
start to the cycling dinner! And while sitting
in the warm afternoon sun we almost forgot
the time, so we arrived a bit too late for our
main course. Fortunately, when we arrived
at the house where we were to consume the
second course, we found Marleen Balvert and
Lars van Heijst still cooking. It turned out
to be a very well prepared pasta dish with
smoked salmon and vegetables. And again,
a glass of fine white TEV wine was served.
During the meal Marleen and Lars tried to
bribe us with some money to give a good
review of their meal in this article. Luckily for
them, that wasn’t necessary, as they would
get a good review anyway!
The dessert was served at my place. Tess and
I tried to squeeze everyone into my room,
which was a very tight fit. We were very happy
that our dessert tasted so good because it
was a bit of an experiment. After some beers
and some more beers, we went to Philip’s for
the final drink. Everyone was already there Name:
and was trying to convince one another that Tim van der Molen
their course was the best. All in all this was a Kuipers
very good end to the cycling dinner! |
Age:
18

Begin studies:
2008

Nekst 2 - June 2009 31

nekst4.indd 31 12-6-2009 12:00:08

 e r fo r ming at the highest
level
business interview D eloitte
We arrive at the Deloitte offices in Eindhoven 45 minutes early and are welcomed by a friendly lady at the
reception. Three quarters of an hour later, at the scheduled time, we are welcomed once more, this time
by Martin Delsman, senior consultant at Deloitte. Martin is accompanied by an active member of Asset |
Econometrics, Inge Pulles. For two days a week Inge is a working student at Deloitte. Martin has agreed to tell
us all about Deloitte and life as a consultant within Deloitte.
Deloitte started as an assurance advisory
firm but has since grown much bigger. Today
Deloitte has departments that specialise in
tax advice, general consultancy and, Martin’s
department, Financial Advisory Services
(FAS). With 300 out of a total of 5000 Deloitte
employees FAS holds the distinction of being
the smallest of Deloitte’s departments. It is also
the department where most econometricians
work. Martin works in the Actuarial & Employee
Benefits (A&EB) branch of FAS.
The past
When Martin was younger, he wanted to
Name: become a fireman or a chef. When he reached
Martin Delsman the age at which he had to choose a course,
he says “I was good at maths and I thought
it was rather fun. I also liked economics, so
Age: when someone told me about econometrics I
27 thought, that sounds fine, let’s do that.” Martin
originally comes from Waalwijk, which is close
to Tilburg, and started his studies at Tilburg
Function: University in 2000. He did not move to Tilburg,
Senior Consultant but rather preferred to stay in Waalwijk. “I
played in the first football team, and we trained
twice a week and played matches every Sunday.
I didn’t quit that team until this year.” Martin
was, as he calls it, a passive-active member of
Tilburgse Econometristen Vereniging (TEV),
now known as Asset | Econometrics. He went
to activities and drinks but did not take part
in any of the committees. In his words “I was
on some committees for my football club, but
never within TEV.”
One of the activities Martin enjoyed during
his studies was the study trip to Warsaw, in
which Deloitte was the cooperating company.
Martin liked the business case they worked on
and in the evenings he chatted with some of
the people who worked at Deloitte. Because
he liked the people and the business case,
he applied to become a working student and
this is how he entered the world of Deloitte.
32 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 32
Reflecting on his time as a working student he
says: “I was given a lot of fun assignments while
working at Deloitte and the atmosphere within
the team was very good. So I stayed at Deloitte
to write my thesis. In the meantime, I started
working at Deloitte fulltime and I still feel very
much at home here.”
The team
When Martin tells us about his team, he is really
enthusiastic. “There is an open atmosphere
within our group. We even have nicknames
for each other!” It is also a very young team.
“The oldest member is about forty years
old.” Because everyone is rather young, the
hierarchy is less strict. “Deloitte has a very open
culture. Of course there is some hierarchy, but
the partner (senior employee who manages
the department) is open to the ideas of others.
Together you talk about what is the right
solution to a problem. Sometimes he agrees
with you and sometimes not.”
The work
The actuaries, insurance experts and employee
benefit consultants within A&EB provide a
full range of pension consulting and actuarial
advisory services in the Netherlands. The fields
of expertise are ‘employee benefits’, ‘pension
accounting’, ‘merger & acquisition advisory’ and
‘actuarial & insurance solutions’.
“When you start at Deloitte you become an
analyst, working either part-time, as a working
student or fulltime. In time you might develop
to become a consultant and later senior
consultant, which means you are responsible
for some projects. You could then become a
manager or even senior manager, which means
that you are responsible for a whole team, with
different projects under your supervision. And
if you aspire to even more, you can become a
partner.” Whether or not you are promoted to
the next level does not depend on how many
12-6-2009 12:00:08
 years you have worked for Deloitte,
“if you show that you can do the job,
promotion is a possibility. Age is not
important, quality is.” An interesting
point for junior colleagues is that they
can have direct contact with clients
from the moment they start working in
our team.
Martin is senior consultant and therefore
has to supervise a few projects, so it is
his job to make sure that analysts do
their work and to explain to them what
they should do. “When you start as an
analyst, you mainly calculate. When you
get promoted to a higher position, you
have to allocate tasks and check what
has been done within the projects. You
also have to review what the analysts
have done.” This means that there is
less calculating, but certainly not less
econometric work. “When I see the final
result of the work that the analyst has
done, I need to think whether it makes
sense or not. As an econometrician you
have the analytical skills that enable
you to see this right away. If the answer
does not make any sense, I need to go
through the calculations and check
whether they have been done correctly.”
This means that Martin does not use the
theoretical part of his studies that much
anymore, but mainly the practical part
and analytical way of thinking. “This
is what I liked most about my course,
placing the result of the calculations
into the context of the problem.” His
job also requires him to look at the
consequences of the results for the
company that hired Deloitte.“Sometimes
you have a beautiful calculation, but
this does not concern our clients. I think
this is Deloitte’s strong point, we are
focussed on what the consequences for
our clients are and how to improve the
policy of that company together with
the client.”
The most important thing Martin has
learned from the work he does is the
‘helicopter view’. “People who have just
started the job, throw themselves fully
into a certain problem. Sometimes you
need to take a step back and consider
Nekst 4 - June 2009 33
nekst4.indd 33
the actual problem. The helicopter view
helps you to apply your knowledge on a
higher level.”
The international part
Deloitte also has international clients.
“At the moment, we are working
on an assignment for KLM. We are
checking whether the pensions have
been disclosed correctly in the annual
accounts and in doing so we have a lot
of contact with our pension colleagues
in France, as KLM is connected to Air
France.”
Martin’s department works together with
French and British pension departments.
Hence, staff can go on exchanges with
the Deloitte offices in these countries.
“You can go to Paris or London for two
months, twice a year,” Martin tells us.
“Then someone from Paris or London
comes to the Netherlands. I have plans
to go to Paris in the near future.” These
exchanges give you the opportunity to
get to know people. This is beneficial
when you have a customer who also has
staff in France or the United Kingdom.
“The pension law in these countries
differs from the law in the Netherlands,
so it is good to have connections and to
simply be able to ask them about it.”
The credit crunch
The credit crunch is not causing Martin’s
M a r t i n ’s t e a m
team too many problems. A year ago,
a lot of companies were taken over by
private equity and this brought with it a
lot of advisory tasks for Deloitte. But since
the banks now lend less, the number
of assignments has decreased for the
team members working on pension
due diligences. On the other hand, small
businesses almost go bankrupt, which
means that bigger businesses can buy
them at a lower cost. This in turn means
extra work for Martin’s team.
Still, Deloitte has taken action as a result
of the credit crunch. However instead of
firing people, all employees have been
asked to take 13 extra days off during
the year, three of which are to be paid
for by Deloitte. Martin is not concerned,
“This way, we share the pain. Besides,
my girlfriend has 44 days off a year
and I have 26, so we can have an extra
vacation together. Maybe we’ll go diving
this summer.”
The future
Martin does not have the ambition to
become partner, yet. He says it seems
like fun, but it takes a lot to get there.
Perhaps he’ll start his own company
some day but for now he says “I like it
here so much that I am not planning to
leave.” [MB]
12-6-2009 12:00:12
 Astri
Activit
2008-2

nekst4.indd 34 12-6-2009 12:00:16

trics
ivities
8-2009

nekst4.indd 35 12-6-2009 12:00:21

 ensions , economet r ics and
do w n - to - ea r th mathematics
T he teacher

Thursday morning, 9.00 hours until 10.00 hours. That was where we were squeezed into Professor Nijman’s

tight schedule. He is a busy man: Scientific Director Tilburg Center of Finance; Academic Coordinator Inquire

Europe; Scientific Director and Chairman of Netspar and – of course – full professor at Tilburg University.

This is the fate many of us might face in the Pensions

future: loads of work, but we have known it
from the beginning and we have chosen so.
Professor Nijman chose this path in 1975 when
he entered the Econometrics programme of
the Free University of Amsterdam, which he
finished with a PhD in 1985. He did not have a
real reason for choosing econometrics except
that he knew “it is something with maths”, but,
looking back, he is sure he made the right
choice. If he could reconsider this, he would
choose it again without a doubt.
Professor Nijman is not worried about his
personal pension at all, but argues that
many others should. Everyone knows, and
econometric analysis gives the proof, that
governments and people will have a hard
time on financing the pensions of future
generations. According to Nijman, there
are two types of countries which both will
struggle to maintain a decent pension: the
ones that hardly save, for example most
European countries and others like the

” S o m e e co n o m e t ri c i a n s t h i n k t h e ir added
Name:
Theo Nijman
va l u e i s to m a ke t h e m o d e l m o re complex. ”
Position:
Scientific director
Now, he has been working at Tilburg University
and chairman of
for 24 years, in which he contributed his part
Netspar to the change of the very local department
of Econometrics to a fully international
institute. Until 2002 he had focused mainly on
econometric methods and finance. The first
ten years he concentrated his work mainly on
econometric methodology and the next ten
years on financial econometrics. However,
since 2005 he focused on the analysis of
pensions, in which professor Nijman has put
almost all his effort the recent years. Many
students recognise him from his contributions,
both to the academic literature and to the
public debate. He really likes his position as
scientific director and chairman of Netspar,
since it allows him to be very independent in
his opinions, which he would not have been
possible if he worked for the government or
in business. Therefore he expects to stay at
Tilburg University in the future and maybe
until his retirement, in which he can enjoy his
pension.
United States that do save but leave the
citizens completely free in their decisions
and therefore completely vulnerable to their
own ignorance. The Dutch pension system
avoids these pitfalls but has the drawback
that it neglects the potential of fitting the
schemes to individual preferences and
circumstances, which would make use of the
different sensitivities towards risk factors.
An increase in retirement age is required
globally - and Nijman predicts it to be raised
further in the future. Professor Nijman: “My
generation will have to cope with a lot of risk
regarding the funding of our pensions. We
cannot depend on the younger generations
to pay for us. A huge part of it will be based
on investments which always involve risk.”
Another important factor which is stressed
by Professor Nijman is the lack of awareness
in society: “Hardly anyone thinks about his
own future retirement or even plans how he
or she will save up for it. It is taken for granted
to receive a decent pension and this state of

36 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 36 12-6-2009 12:00:22

 mind towards the problem must change as
soon as possible since government cannot
carry this burden on its own anymore.”
Netspar
Netspar is a leading institute focusing on
the problems regarding pensions. This
network connects researchers from seven
Dutch universities as well as international
researchers. Netspar is supported by the
government as well as the private sector.
Netspar is based on three different pillars:
research, exchange of knowledge and
education and has already been successful
in stimulating the debate on pensions and
aging. Politicians have declared pensions to
“S ee the s t re n g t h s o f t h e u s e o f Eco n o m e t ri c s
i n re a l l i fe a p p l i ca t i o n s. ”
be a vital policy concern and heated debates
regarding the current funding can be seen
on television. Even on the international level,
Netspar has gained attention and other
countries show interest in their work. For the
period 2008-2011 14 million Euros have been
raised from the private and public sector
to fund Netspar and Nijman emphasises
that there would be no limits for Netspar if
they received more support. Netspar tries
to meet the future demand for economists
by coordinating the relatively new master’s
programme ‘Economics and Finance of Aging’
and moreover initiated and sponsors three
courses in the Econometrics curriculum.
Econometrics
Besides all this, Professor Nijman teaches
the courses ‘Asset Liability Management’
and ‘Pension System Design’ which both
introduce students to tools to find solutions
regarding problems with pensions.
Theo Nijman regards Econometrics as a
powerful device to solve financial problems
but he criticises the current focus of the
programme. The curriculum is very much
centred on theory and tools, which is
appropriate for the first semesters, but
Nekst 4 - June 2009 37
nekst4.indd 37
later on more emphasis should be put on
the great potential of econometrics to
analyse real life problems. The best theory
is useless if its use is not fine-tuned to the
real life problem at hand. Furthermore, the Theo Nijman’s choices:
students’ position towards econometrics is
not always very efficient in Nijman’s opinion:
“Some econometricians think their added
value is to make the model more complex by Amsterdam or Tilburg?
adding another generalisation. . Rather they Tilburg
should try to find the simplest model that
characterises the essence of the problem.”
They simply lose track of the actual sense of Free University or
Econometrics and that is why he pleads to all Tilburg University?
econometricians to always bear in mind the Tilburg University
connection to a real life problem.
Listening or speaking?
Speaking
Telegraaf or Nekst?
Nekst
Personal life Theory or practice?
He would like to spend more time on Practice
teaching and research himself, but, due to his
several administrative positions, he spends
three days a week on management and Calculator or mental
can only devote part of his time on these. arithmetic?
Fortunately Frank van der Duyn Schouten Calculator
has recently joined the Netspar board which
should reduce the time Nijman spends on ALM or Pension System
administrative duties. Nijman admits that Design?
work has become his hobby and that it does Pension System Design
heavily influence his private life. Apart from
doing research during the weekend, he also Beer or wine?
plays tennis and is part of an investment Wine
committee. He has three daughters of which
one is currently studying psychology. This
topic has immediately aroused his interest, Risky investment or
since her thesis is surprisingly heavily related savings account?
to statistics. Nijman is also interested in the Risky investment
use of statistics and mathematics in other
fields, including applications in health care. Stress or boredom?
There are too many things he would like to Stress
do.
Many of them will have to be postponed until
he retires. But even then, lecturing on the
use of econometrics in finance and pensions
is likely to be one of his activities. [ TD]
12-6-2009 12:00:23
 ORTEC

nekst4.indd 38 12-6-2009 12:00:23

 s inging , d r inking and fa l l ing

beer cantus

28 April, the day on which the fourth COdE Beer Cantus took place in the Music & Theatre house La Vida. The

theme of the cantus was orange, thereby making this event a great warming up for the upcoming Queen’s

day. At first, only active members of the Asset associations were allowed to buy tickets for this special event,

but eventually as there were some tickets left, I managed to get myself one as well.

We wanted to be sure to get a nice table
at the cantus, where we could sit together
with as many econometricians as possible.
So about half an hour before the start of the
cantus, we changed into our orange outfits
and cycled to La Vida. After we had found a
table in a perfect spot, which was close to the
bar and with enough space to move around,
we waited until the singing and drinking
began.
Because this was my first beer cantus in
Tilburg, I didn’t know the rules in detail or
what kind of songs we would be singing. As a
result, I took a quick look at the rather small
cantus book while we were waiting. I quickly
concluded that the songs were familiar to
me and that most of the rules where quite
straightforward. A notable rule was that it
was not allowed to go to the toilet during the
cantus. Furthermore, we were only allowed
to drink when the organisation of the cantus
allowed us to. Just before it all started, the
organisation explained the rules one last
time. With that said, everybody was more
than ready to empty their first glasses!
The cantus started a little rusty, probably due
to overall soberness. However, after a couple
of songs and beers you could really sense the
atmosphere growing. Especially during songs
like ‘‘t Dondert en ‘t Bliksemt’ and ‘Stil in
mij’. Everybody was singing as loudly and as
physically as possible. In between the songs,
we sang the short famous cantus song ‘Trink,
trink, Brüderlein trink!’. It was only allowed
to drink after this cantus song, which is why
(almost) everyone emptied his or her glasses
in one gulp as soon as it had ended.
Name:
With the end of the cantus in sight, everyone Patrick Kuijpers
got pretty ‘tipsy’ and lots of people were
standing on benches and tables, dancing and
singing. When the cantus was over, everybody Age:
stormed to the nearest toilet, causing quite a 20
chaos. After that exceptional event, everyone
enjoyed the so-called ‘after party’. Some
casual music was played and there were lots Begin studies:
of cold beverages available. Many members 2007
of Asset | Econometrics were around, so it
was practically like drinks at café Babbus.
This leaves me with one thing I wish to share:
the considerable number of people falling
on the ground. Whether this was due to the
condition some of us were in or to the fact
that the floor was all wet, as those who had
fallen down tried to explain their behaviour,
is for you to guess.

Around two o’clock at night, the lights

Members enjoying the cantus
popped on and the party was over. A lot of
people were really tired, as one could easily
derive from their facial expressions, and
cycled directly to their homes, some taking
a slight detour. It was a wonderful evening,
which all once started with a nice cantus. |

Nekst 4 - June 2009 39

nekst4.indd 39 12-6-2009 12:00:25

 ene w ing pension cont r acts
e x cursion E rnst & young
At 10 o’clock on 25 March we gathered at Tilburg Central station for a trip to Amsterdam. The trip, organised
by Asset | Econometrics and associated with the third year course ‘Life Insurance’, was to lead us to Ernst &
Young.
We all thought the day at Ernst & Young
would immediately start with a talk by the
company, so everybody had a quick bite to eat
at Amsterdam Central Station. We were quite
wrong, as the day started with a delicious
lunch. Luckily, most of us had left some
space, so a considerable amount of lunch
disappeared into the stomachs of the ever
hungry Tilburgian econometricians. After this
student’s ritual, the employees of Ernst & Young
told us a bit about themselves, what they had
studied and how it all started for them at Ernst
& Young. They also told us about their daily
work at the company. One of these people
was Ellen Kessels, former board member of
Name: Tilburgse Econometristen Vereniging, now
Iris Mehlkopf known as Asset | Econometrics. Ellen’s talk
was followed by an interactive lecture about
what econometricians can mean for Ernst &
Age: Young and what Ernst & Young can mean for
22 them. Of course, one of the hottest items at
the moment in the financial world, the credit
crunch, was a main topic of discussion. It was
Begin studies: clearly explained to us how the credit crunch
2005 started and how it was possible that it had
become so largely and widely spread across
the different sectors.
After a short break, it was time for serious
business: the students were put to work, as
Discussion in progress
40 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 40
a case developed by Ernst & Young had to be
solved. In groups of five, we had to pretend
we were hired by the board of a company
specialised in waste retrieval. The company had
several employees in their service who were
not satisfied with their pension contracts. We
needed to come up with a solution that would
satisfy the employees. In order to gather more
information, we needed to negotiate with
some professionals (who were actually the
well acting employees from Ernst & Young).
There were five professionals, but we could
only talk to three of them. Of course, the right
questions needed to be asked in order to
retrieve the essential information.
With the information received, a solution had
to be found by implementing the information
in Excel. After that, we needed to be present
a solution to the board of the company. With
this case, Ernst & Young tried to show us
that working as an econometrician at their
company does not mean you have to calculate
and model things all day long, but that skills
like negotiating and presenting are important
for the employees of Ernst & Young as well.
Of course, the winners would not leave
Amsterdam without a prize. Unfortunately,
our group did not win, but I heard the winners
thoroughly enjoyed the bottle of champagne
they received. This rumour was confirmed by
the fact that the bottle was already empty
before we even left Amsterdam.
Now the winners had been announced and
the case was solved, it was time to get to know
the company in a more informal way. Ernst &
Young invited us for drinks and a delicious
three-course dinner. Exactly twelve hours after
we had gathered at Tilburg Central Station, it
was time to leave Amsterdam again. Tomorrow
some courses at the university would be
waiting for us again. |
12-6-2009 12:00:26
 h a v anian cocktai l s and
dutch b ee r
freshmen activity

After a whole year packed with freshmen activities, we concluded the work of the Freshmen Committee with

a final night out at Havana’s, where we would soon learn how to create some fancy cocktails like the Mojito

and the, according to many female members, all-time-favourite Cosmopolitan.

It is a long road to becoming a real student, but with a
guide at your side everyone can find his way down this road.
Over the past year, Asset | Econometrics has quite often led
the freshmen to interesting activities. For the last time this
academic year we stopped by 18 to add the finishing touches
to our student life. Since our upcoming years should not just
consist of lectures and pubs, but also the more sophisticated
cultural offerings, we were inducted into the secrets of cocktail
making.
After finishing all the cocktails, concoctions and wannabe-
cocktails, we hurried to Café Babbus to conclude the evening
and consolidate our past experiences in there. Asset |
Econometrics opened barrel after barrel and everyone was
busy keeping up, which of course steadily improved the
atmosphere. Everyone who failed to come did indeed miss
out on a nice evening. It was the last freshmen get-together
for us and now we have to make room for new people who
are eager to immerse themselves in Tilburg’s student life. But

“I f p oss i b l e d o n o t co o k fo r yo u r s e l f b u t i n s te a d l e t someone
p re p a re a n ex h a u s t i ve d i n n e r. ”
The evening started off with an important lesson: if possible we do not need to worry: there is still a lot to do with Asset |
do not cook for yourself but instead let someone prepare an Econometrics and we are prepared. [TD]
exhaustive dinner. As we had come together for the advanced
level of amusement, we expected above average catering.
Indeed, it did meet our expectations and the dinner was
certainly above the average student’s cooking – at least for
my part (this might not be that much of a struggle though).
Only the chicken salad seemed to be less satisfying than steak
and spare-ribs, which were both popular choices. Therefore,
the kind-hearted shared their fortunate choice.

After finishing the three-course dinner, we proceeded to the

main event of this night’s training: The cocktails. We were
instructed by the official barkeepers and were shown how to
mix several cocktails: Cosmopolitan, Apple Teaser and Mojito.
After a while and a few wet shirts, everyone got used to the
shaker and we could try our first Cosmopolitans – luckily
three times per person. Some people might have put some
more emphasis on the interesting part of a cocktail, mine
were unfortunately quite juicy. Not everyone is born to make
cocktails…

The following two drinks were prepared quite easily once you
got the hang of it and some decided to create their own rather
foolhardy compositions. Overall, the Mojito added a very
interesting taste due to its mixture of peppermint and lime, so
that it is definitely worth remembering for future drinks. Freshmen enjoying their dinner

Nekst 4 - June 2009 41

nekst4.indd 41 12-6-2009 12:00:26

 Flow Traders

nekst4.indd 42 12-6-2009 12:00:26

 B l ood , s w eat and tea r s

N acht van eindhoven

The ‘ Nacht van Eindhoven’ (Night of Eindhoven) is the yearly highlight for Operations Research & Management

Science (ORMS) orientated students. This event, organised by CQM, shows students the practical aspects of

the quantitative methods they have learnt and to meet prospective employees within CQM. The Night of

Eindhoven is in fact a match between different student associations in the field of quantitative mathematics.

In the preperation we have had a laugh
about the teams from chemistry and
the team from artificial intelligence:
how were they supposed to solve any
of the problems and what were they
thinking to take part in such a match?
With four laptops crammed with
software and e-books, and Servaas’
book of applied physics just in case we
had solve all problems before midnight,
we took the train to Eindhoven at the
end of the afternoon. At the CQM
main office we were welcomed by the
employees and guided to our very
own office. Within less than 30 minutes
this clean office was transformed into
a big mess with cables and books all
over the place. Bram took a seat in
the (excellent) chair of the CEO, but
unfortunately he could not enjoy it for
more than ten minutes, as it was time
for dinner which took place in a nearby
tapas restaurant. We had the honour
of sitting next to the chemistry team.
They were unfamilair with packages
like SPSS, AIMMS, Arena, Delphi, Excel,
Paint, etcetera, but they knew basic
Matlab programming and had common
sense (so we were told). Walking back
to the office we evaluated our winning
probability.
Back in the office we got a short
introduction into the problems we
were to face the upcoming night.
There was a total of five problems to be
solved, three of them were big. The first
problem was to deliver beer to hundred
pubs in one day with six trucks and to
take back empty beer crates; a typical
problem for the savings algorithm of
Clarke & Wright. The second problem
was beer taste optimisation. With 200
simulation runs we had to identify
the impact of eight control variates
on the taste. The third problem was
to optimise a supply chain by the
use of simulation. CQM programmed
a simulation tool for us, but it was
intentionally made extremely slow by
including redundant loops. The first
problem was to protect a museum
by camera surveillance with as few
cameras as possible. Our solution was
really nice but CQM thinks that a wall
is fully protected if only one side is
seen. Imagine that the famous painting
‘Nachtwacht’ is on the unprotected
side! Very few points for us on this one.
The last problem was the so-called
‘Ants game’. The goal was to get as
many of your twelve ants to the other
side of the battlefield as possible. You
can make the ants powerful by dividing
your 1000 available points among
your ants. If one of your ants meets
another ant on the battlefield, the ant
with least power gets killed. During
the night three rounds were played on
a large screen, the last round counting
twice. After every round there was
a possibility to analyse other teams’
strategies.

After a night of very hard working

we got a lunch in the PSV stadium
during which our solutions on the
problems were verified. Unfortunately
we ended up seventh (out of 9) and
even got beaten by the chemistry
team. Fortunately the good reputation
of econometricians was defended by
our fellow mates from Maastricht, they
A clever ant won the match. [SvB]

Nekst 4 - June 2009 43

nekst4.indd 43 12-6-2009 12:00:27

 ne w financia l w o r l d

symposium

12 May 2009. I still doubted whether or not I wanted to visit the symposium ‘A New Financial World, the Day after

the Credit Crunch’, organised by Asset | Econometrics. Twenty minutes after the final subscription deadline, I was

luckily still able to subscribe myself for the symposium. After the symposium a member of the editorial staff of

Nekst approached me and asked whether I would be willing to write an article about the day! A valid reason to

actually try to remember the newly gained information, since I had to write an article about it.

Thursday 14 May 2009. The day the symposium
would take place. I tried to imagine how I
would feel if I were part of the committee
(which was not the case). I would most
definitely be quite nervous for a day that you
have been preparing for so long. Nevertheless,
the entire committee seemed very controlled
and calm. Even the chairman of the committee
didn’t look at all nervous about her upcoming
speech. Nothing was actually going wrong, so
I guess there was nothing to be nervous about
either.
The chairman of the symposium committee,
Nicole van de Reij, opened the day. In order to
Name: make the upcoming lectures as interactive as
Hettie Boonman possible, she encouraged the audience to ask
any questions they might have. The committee
wanted all the questions the audience might
Age: have about the credit crunch to be answered.
21
The chairman of the day was Professor Beck,
affiliated with Tilburg University and chairman
Begin studies: of the board of the European Banking Centre.
2006 The current crisis we have been experiencing
over the past year has turned into a global
recession. Prof. Beck asked the audience: “What
policies do we need in the Netherlands, in
Europe and on a global level, to overcome this
crisis?” Too little attention has been paid to
the role of politics up till now. The neglect of
risk-taking and bail-out expectations go a long
way in explaining the build-up of the bubble
in the United States and parts of Europe.
I noticed the person in front of me being
pretty touched by one of the slides shown
by Prof. Beck; a wages scale of employees in
different sectors. The wages of employees in
the financial business sector during a period
of economic welfare were almost double the
wages of employees with a similar position in
another sector. However, after the crisis, the
wages of those employed in financial business
dropped to the level of the other sectors.
The first plenary lecture was given by Mr
Brouwer, executive Director of De Nederlandse
Bank (DNB). “The losses on the United States
subprime mortgage market and the ensuing
worldwide financial crisis is a typical example
of the tail wagging the dog”, Mr Brouwer
explains. Important for econometricians is that
the current crunch raises fundamental issues
on the structure of financial markets, such as
the viability of certain business models and the
size and complexity of financial institutions.
After the interesting lecture by Mr Brouwer,
the floor was given to Mr De Boo, Head of
Government, financial institutions and the rest
of the world accounts at the Central Statistical
Office (CBS in the Netherlands). He stated
that the governments intervened massively
by taking various actions in response to the
escalating financial turmoil that started in 2007.
Such interventions can have consequences for
government finance. This was shown by means
of graphs in his presentation.
Since I had chosen for the parallel sessions (one
could also choose a workshop about trading,
provided by All Options), after the fifteen
minute break and having stretched my legs I
continued with a lecture by Mr Van den Bosch,
Manager Credit Risk & Pricing management
at SNS REAAL. Mr Van den Bosch gave several
ideas on how the Netherlands could get
involved in a credit boost. The second parallel
session was given by Mr Van Wiggen, Senior
Manager Financial Services Risk Management
at Ernst & Young. He concluded that we should
not throw away all risk models. Mr Van Wiggen:
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
Furthermore, according to Mr Van Wiggen,
Basel II helps to increase inside risk. However, he
also believes that the underlying assumptions
of the models need to be reconsidered.

44 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 44 12-6-2009 12:00:27

 During the second break of the symposium, Ms Biezeveld entered the building. Before her lecture we had
a cup of coffee and talked about her experience in the pension business. I was very surprised when I heard
about her past. She talked about her studies and I quickly found out she had studied social sciences. In my
opinion, this is not a logical step to becoming active in the pension sector after the completion of your studies,
so I was curious about her lecture.
Before her lecture, however, we had the
opportunity to listen to another speaker, Mr
van Welie. Mr van Welie, CEO at ORTEC Finance,
started his lecture about pension funds.
Pension funds are a hot item at the moment,
because of the current state of the financial
world. Many (Dutch) pension funds have seen
their funding rates decreased by a lot ever
since the credit crunch. The extreme drop of
the funding rate of Dutch pension funds is
comparable with a loss of 200 to 250 billion
euros. We can call ourselves lucky that in the
past many pension funds had a large buffer.
That is the reason why pension funds are still
standing. But to protect ourselves against
a new ‘black swan’ event, we have to debate
the past and learn from the lessons from the
past. Mr van Welie told us about models and
the use of these models for measuring risk
management and asset liability management.
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman emphasised
the use of models by saying: “The only way to
make sense of a complex system is to work
with models.” But models are a simplified
statement of reality and they can always be
improved.
The main question about managing risk is
how much risk you are willing take and how to
manage those risks. Part of the answer to this
question is that there must be a good match
between the wishes of the stakeholders and
the implementation of the pension funds.
Therefore it is important that the stakeholders
understand the risks and are prepared to bear
them. To prevent problems in the future we
have to be very careful about taking risks.
Therefore the ambition level of models is very
important. The models are the basic element
of calculating risk. A good predictability is
necessary. Also the transparency of the models
and products and the fact that stakeholders
understand the risk is important. The last,
but definitely not least important question is
Nekst 4 - June 2009 45
nekst4.indd 45
about the stochastic distribution used in the
models. Did we choose the right distribution?
Past data tells us that a Gaussian distribution
underestimates risks. Furthermore, questions
about the correlations are important for the
right predictability.
After the interesting lecture by Mr van Welie,
it was time for Ms Biezeveld to tell us about
pension funds from a more sociological
viewpoint. Actually, she continued the lecture
of Mr van Welie. The topics of the lecture given
by Ms Biezeveld had a link between the risk
management of the pension funds and the
future risks you can expect. A topic that needs
special attention is the aging of society and
the probable increase of the retirement age. Name:
These are good points for designing future Stefan Damen
pension schemes. There are a lot of topics that
need to be plugged into the pension scheme
and therefore have to be discussed in detail. Age:
22
After these lectures we closed the day with a
nice social drink and Summer Party drinks at
our local, Café Babbus. Everyone who arrived at Begin studies:
the drinks was given a free thematic cocktail! 2006
Once the evening became night, it was time
for famous Asset | Econometrics songs like
‘Tribute’ by Tenacious D and ‘Kryptonite’ by
3 Doors Down. It was a dignified ending to a
successful symposium. |
Ms Biezeveld
12-6-2009 12:00:32
 r edit sco r ing is not b o r ing

B usiness interview rabobank

Seen from Eindhoven central station, one cannot miss the impressive Rabobank building. Inside this

Rabobank headquarters, we were welcomed by William Verkooijen, who guided us through the Rabobank

office jungle to finally end up in a room with a wonderful view of Eindhoven, where the interview would take

place. William told us about his work and daily life as head of Business Analysis and Modelling.

Rabobank The idea of a career abroad does not appeal

Because William has worked at Rabobank for
only four months, we were surprised he could
tell us so much about the bank that was once
founded by farmers. Rabobank consists of about
150 local banks. This cooperation of banks
together own Rabobank Netherlands, which
acts as a service-organisation for the member
banks. Every bank is autonomous; most of the
daily work is done within the bank. William
works at the Risk and Capital Management
department of Rabobank Netherlands,
which is centralised because of the specific
expertise and to facilitate regulators in the
communication with Rabobank. As a result, the
Name: department Mr Verkooijen works at, supports
William Verkooijen all the local banks in the Netherlands with
the development and maintenance of credit
risk models for private individuals as well as
Age: companies.
41
to William at this moment. However, from
earlier experiences he says it is interesting to
experience the huge differences in the way of
working among the different countries.
According to William, the nicest thing about
working at Rabobank is that you have to
cooperate a lot with others: “Cooperation is
Rabobank’s keyword. It is important to reach
a consensus on an important topic with all
stakeholders. This is the main difference with
other banks.” William adds that Rabobank is
also quite active in formulating a personal
training programme for every employee. Based
on individual preferences, employees can, for
instance, take business training, which is also
what William did. William’s team consists of
eight modelling analysts and three business
analysts. William: “My team is a nice and
pleasant group, we work hard but in a relaxed
atmosphere.”

Position: “I p re fer wo r k i n g fo r a b a n k , b e ca u s e I like the

Head of Business
Analysis and Credit
Risk Management
i n te ra c t i o n , te a m wo r k a n d dy n a mics. ”
The cooperative structure of Rabobank
implies that major proposed changes require
positive advice from the member banks. This
makes that Rabobank has remained relatively
stable over the past years. In addition to the
all finance strategy for the home market,
Rabobank also has international exposure.
Rabobank International has departments
all over the world. These are active mainly in
the agricultural and food sectors. Rabobank
International offers its employees the
opportunity to go abroad: employees with
specialisation in a particular area are then
able to help internation member banks with
for instance their risk management processes.
William’s career
William studied Technical Mathematics at
Eindhoven University of Technology and
graduated in 1992. We were surprised to
hear that William went to Tilburg University
to do doctoral research after his studies. Mr
Verkooijen: “I obtained my doctorate on a
topic about Neural Networks in Economic
Modelling. This is about considering networks
via non-parametric case studies. Neural
networks originate from psychology in which
they were proposed as a model for the working
of the human brain.” Prof. Hennie Daniëls
and Prof. Jef Plasmans were both in William’s

46 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 46 12-6-2009 12:00:32

 doctoral committee. William enjoyed
his time at Tilburg, but also says that
for him personally doing research was
appealing for a limited period of time:
“It is valuable to be able to work very
intensively on one subject. It was this
research that got me interested in
economic topics. Nowadays, I prefer
working for a bank, because I like the
interaction, teamwork and dynamics.”
Following William’s doctoral research,
he started his working career in at
ABN AMRO bank, where he worked
for thirteen years. He got this job via
contacts he established whilst taking
his doctoral degree. During the first
years, he worked in IT in the area of data-
mining, which was a real hype in those
days. This was mainly based on working
with databases, statistical techniques
and much use of software. He did this
“ The s ay i n g ’ C re d i t s co ri n g i s b o ri n g’ d o e s n o t h o ld at all.
I t h i n k t h e o p p o s i te i s a c t u a l l y t ru e. ”
for about three years. He experienced
that it was hard to push new techniques
into the organisation. In those areas, for
instance marketing and credit scoring,
where the need was identified by the
business-units itself the new techniques
were easily adopted. After having full-
filled a function as data warehouse
consultant, William moved to t the area
of credit risk management. When credit
risk management became important
mainly through Basel, his job was in
this sector. Mr Verkooijen experienced
the birth of credit risk management
and watched it become what it is today.
When he started, the department
consisted of only three employees. As
of that moment, it started to become
more and more obvious that credit risk
management was also important to
manage the risks of private individuals
and small and medium enterprises.
For instance, within retail it is also a
Nekst 4 - June 2009 47
nekst4.indd 47
much applied method. William saw
the department expand from three
people to over fifty: “The environment
became more and more professional.”
In his final years at ABN AMRO, William
worked on the integration of risk and
capital models between ABN AMRO and
Fortis. Via personal contacts William
got contact with Rabobank, where he
found a new challenge in managing the
business analysis and modelling teams.
A regular working day
William starts his working day in the
morning by checking numerous emails.
William: “After that, I try to go through
the small points of action I noted down
the day before. Furthermore, I have a
lot of meetings, with team members,
colleagues, stakeholders, etc.” The risk
manager at Rabobank also has a lot of
appointments with business managers.
Moreover, he has several feedback
meetings and performs validation
checks for his group. Mr Verkooijen:
“Sometimes, we have to develop credit
risk models for corporate clients.
Then there are expert meetings with
specialists from the member banks,
as these models are build on both
expertise and statistics.” Usually he has
a long working day of about nine to ten
hours. He likes the combination of on
one hand dealing with a broad range
of topics and on the other hand the in-
depth discussion of modelling solutions
with my team. This combined with day-
to-day management of my teams make
my job interesting and challenging.
William says that as a manager with a
mathematical background you have
be able to delegate the details to the
specialists while keeping a good eye
on the end-result as well as on the
process followed. This has convinced us
that working at the risk management
department in his position is very all-
round and interesting.
William’s personal life
William lives in Raamsdonk, a small
village near Waalwijk. He has always
been a fanatic cyclist, a hobby that
he spent a lot of time on whilst he
was a student, especially. In his best
years, he also participated in races at
amateur-level. Due to this hobby, his
studies in Eindhoven took an extra
year to complete. This hobby was also
the main reason why he was never
active in committees within student
associations. When William was younger,
he had not a specific idea about what
exactly he wanted to do in the future.
He always had a broad mindset: “Spot
for opportunities and grab the best!”
Asking him about his future, William
finds it difficult to make it concrete;
as he is fresh in his new job. He does
know, however, that he wants to keep
in touch with the field of work in which
he is now active. William: “Perhaps a
position on the next management
level would be interesting in case my
personal development will make this
possible.” He also puts some emphasis
on the statement that the opposite of
the statement ‘Credit scoring is boring’
holds. William claims that this saying
should not scare you off. There are lots
of challenges in this specialist field. As a
final question we ask William about his
choice of studies. Mr Verkooijen: “Taking
my current job and fields of interest
into account, I think Econometrics
would have fit better with my personal
profile.” It was hard to suppress the
smile on our faces after hearing this.
[TB]
12-6-2009 12:00:32
 Charity: Wandeling voor behandeling

nekst4.indd 48 12-6-2009 12:00:32

 T ite l
football tournament and announcement drink
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nis eu feugiat.
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et lum er alit nostisci bla adit nullandre magna commodo
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odigna adipisi.
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odolorem quatuer aestrud te tio et nonse commy nummodo
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sit adigna facidunt niam do commodions doloreet wis non-
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euismod mod euisci ecte ex exero con henim zzrit lobor-
per illa faci tem duisciliquis adipit lobor am alit nulputpat
alit luptatet la cor ad magna facil dolobore consequisit illa
commy nit, coreetum zzrillam, vullaortis do digna commodo
eriureriusto dit luptat. Duipit, volutet, consed ero er sis nibh
erosto odionsent nim aliquis modigna conse vel ullamet ipisl
iniam aliquat wisim nos nim veliquam, conulla oreraesequam
Nekst 4 - June 2009 49
nekst4.indd 49
illut nos erillaor sum quis doluptatue conullaore eugiamet
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tis autem iusto el irit aut lor sed magnisci blaorperci ecte
tem incilit eugue te magnit luptatum ing esectem iliquis cili-
smo dolenim veliscip er iriuscilis dolesequisl ulluptat lut wis
ad dolor susciduip erilis eugait adigna faccum vero dolobore
dunt alisl utatet iuscipisim quis er aliquatio exer atisit do-
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la alis autpat, sent num vero odiam zzrillu ptatet vel utpatie
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12-6-2009 12:00:32
 o w ing is a l l a b out the
fee l ing
kathinka de veer ’ s passion
Every student in Tilburg is familiar with the four student associations: Olof, Plato, d’Artagnan and Vidar. Most of
them have the appearance of having lots of fun, characterised by drinking much beer. However, Vidar, known
as Tilburg’s Student and Rowing Association, also has a serious side, namely, the top class sportsmen. Nekst was
curious about this side of Vidar and asked freshman Kathinka de Veer about the ins and outs of the rowing sport.
Kathinka de Veer is only nineteen years old
and currently enrolled in the Econometrics
programme. Unfortunately, she will switch
to the Economics course at the end of this
academic year. She likes Econometrics
but due to her passion for rowing, she did
not have enough time to study this year.
Kathinka is one of Vidar’s so called ‘Women
8’, one of the top class rowing teams of this
student association. Besides the ‘Women 8’,
the competition section of Vidar consists of
seven other rowing teams, for example the
‘Men 8’ and the ‘Women 4’.
Vidar
Name: During the TIK-week of 2008, Kathinka de
Kathinka de Veer Veer joined Vidar with the idea that being a
member of this association would bring her
into contact with new people, but most of
Age: all that it would bring her much fun. Another
19 reason to join Vidar is the combination of
serious sport and fun. Kathinka: “I see myself
as a sporty lady and I really like these two
Begin studies: aspects of this student association.”
2008
Becoming one of the ‘Women 8’
As a freshman of Vidar, during the first weeks
you have to train twice a week to learn the
basic skills of rowing, which is called the
‘afroei’-period. After this period, the selection
for the ‘Women 8’ of Vidar starts in the so
called pre-training period. “It was strange
to see so many people drop out after each
selection. For a place in the ‘Women 8’ you
have to compete against each other, but at
the same time you are also a member of the
same association.” Kathinka tells us it was a
time in which she had to prove that she had
the motivation and strength to become a top
class rower. In the pre-training, the number
of training sessions per week increased every
few weeks. “Sometimes it was very rough,
because at the same time I had my freshmen
50 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 50
period at debating society Dionysos, which
is a sub-association of Vidar consisting of a
group of women.”
Although it was a hard time for her, at the
beginning of January it was finally official:
Kathinka de Veer signed a contract at Vidar
and could proudly pronounce herself as one of
Vidar’s ‘Women 8’. Kathinka: “I was very happy
that I had been chosen, because now the real
competition began. Instead of competing
against other women members of Vidar, we
now had to form a team of eight women to
defeat the rest of the Netherlands.”
Rowing
Even though it was luckily the end of a period
with lots of stress, Kathinka tells us that the
really hard work had just begun. Starting
with a schedule of two training sessions per
week at the beginning of the academic year,
by the time you are a top class rower you
have developed your body to train six to nine
times per week in the competition season. We
asked Kathinka what ‘Women 8’ do during
a training session. “Half an hour before the
training begins, all eight women meet at a
certain place, from where we cycle together
to Vidar. After arriving at our association, we
put on our sports clothes and are ready to
start our training. First of all we have to warm
up our muscles by stretching and practice
the technique of rowing on dry land in a so
called ‘bak’. After that the coaches give us
tips and explain the goal of the training. Then
we prepare the boat and start the actual
rowing.”
Since Kathinka’s team only consists of women,
there is also a lot of talking before they start
rowing, but once the eight women are in
their boat, concentration and silence are very
important. Kathinka tells us that there are
12-6-2009 12:00:34
 different training schedules: “The first
sort of training is one were everybody
needs to focus on different technical
points. Besides this, we also have speed
sessions of a certain distance within
your training. This means that we have
to row for example two kilometres
at the highest speed. Another sort of
training is one where we have to row
long distances at the same speed.”
If you think that this is the whole
training, you are mistaken. Since, after
the actual rowing, the boat has to be
cleaned and the women have to do
exercises to strengthen and stabilise
their muscles. Kathinka de Veer:
“Training can take five hours of your
time per day. Luckily we have one free
day a week to let our muscles recover
and to do other things like studying or
having fun with friends.”
“I t is ha rd e r fo r m e to g o h o m e b e fo re m i d n i g h t when I am
h a v i n g f u n t h a n n o t to d ri n k a l co h o l . ”
Living for the sport
You may wonder: what is a student
life like without drinking beer and
wine at a party every once in a while?
However, when you sign a contract
at Vidar as a competition rower, you
promise to live as healthily as possible
for the rowing sport. This means that
drinking alcohol or heading for late
night parties is prohibited. Kathinka
tells us that when someone from Vidar
sees you after midnight or notices you
drinking alcohol, her coach will be
fined. “It is harder for me to go home
before midnight when I’m having fun
than not to drink alcohol.” Since the
rules hold for all the eight women,
everyone obeys them for the whole
team. “It would not be appreciated
if one of the women broke the rules,
while the rest are doing their best to
keep their word.” Furthermore, you
need a good resistance, so healthy
food is very important. Kathinka: “We
Nekst 4 - June 2009 51
nekst4.indd 51
need to eat a lot of proteins and in
the beginning we had to gain weight,
because at the end of the season you
will have lost it all.”
The competition
The women train and live in this
healthy way with the aim of winning
the national competition for top class
rowers of every student association
in the Netherlands. Kathinka explains
that there is a long distance season
that begins in February with the so
called ‘Winter competitions’ in Delft. In
the middle of April, the short distance
season starts with the Varsity, which
is the oldest and probably the most
famous rowing competition in the
Netherlands. Kathinka de Veer: “The
competition I personally liked most is
the Heineken Rowing Four Camp that
takes place during the long distance
season. This competition consists of
four different distances: 5 kilometres,
2.5 kilometres, 500 metres and 250
metres. Unfortunately I couldn’t
participate because of an injury.
Nevertheless, it was a nice weekend
in which my team and I learned a lot
about rowing and about each other.”
‘Blikken’
The short distance season is the
most important period, where there
is a competition weekend every two
weeks. On the Saturdays you compete
against other teams to gain points for
the Ernst & Young Division, which is
comparable to the Premier League in
the world of football. On Sundays the
teams row to win a ‘blik’. This is the term
that is used in the rowing world for the
award you receive when you win an
important competition. The number
of ‘blikken’ a rower has indicates his
or her experience and expertise in this
sport. Unfortunately, the ‘Women 8’ do
not have a ‘blik’ yet, but Kathinka hopes
that she and her teammates will win
one in the upcoming competitions.
The passion
Listening to Kathinka, rowing at the
level she does is not just anything. You
must have a passion for this sport if
you are willing to train so much and to
obey the rules of non-drinking and not
going to late night parties when you
are a student. Nekst asked Kathinka
what she liked best about the sport:
“Comparing rowing to tennis, the
sport that I used to do, I think the fact
that rowing is a team sport gives it a
more exciting dimension. During my
first training weekend in Bruges I got
to know my rowing mates very well
and since then we are very close. In
fact it is necessary to be close in order
to perform well in the boat. Not only
do you need to have a good technique,
but we need a good rhythm too. That
is something we lacked in the first
few months. During the first months
as the ‘Women 8’, my teammates and
I got a better understanding of the
water, the boat, the oars and how to
respond to the water. Eventually you
do not row on technique, but really
have to feel the movement of the boat
in every stroke.” Kathinka really likes
rowing and hopes she will continue
rowing in the competition section of
Vidar next academic year. “Rowing is a
sport that you learn very quickly, but it
takes a couple of years before you can
say that you understand it and actually
can row.” Nekst wishes Kathinka good
luck in her rowing career. [WP & MGS]
12-6-2009 12:00:34
 Rabobank

nekst4.indd 52 12-6-2009 12:00:34

 e nte r tainment fo r a stud y
b r eak
column

You have been studying for hours preparing for an exam and you feel like you could use a break. But what

to do during the study break? Here is my favourite study-break-activity: finding fallacies in the speeches of

politicians. It turns out to be fun and really easy. Even better: this activity can be done at any time of the day

because all debates in the Dutch parliament are broadcasted live on the Internet.

A fallacy is an argument that is not logically
sound. As an Econometrician you are
probably good in logic, so finding fallacies
in the speeches of politicians should not be
too difficult for you. Let us run through a
couple of fallacies of famous politicians. Let’s
start off with an easy one: George W. Bush.
His famous quote “You are either with us, or
Politicians are also masters when it comes to
the evasion of the burden of proof by simply
pointing out that many people believe
something. When watching parliamentary
debates you often hear politicians saying
things like: “Everyone knows that longer
periods of prison time do not work” or “No
sane human being would agree that we

“Even if t h e m a j o ri t y o f vo te r s b e l i e ve i n a n
idea, t h a t d o e s n o t m a ke i t a g o o d o n e. ”
against us”, which he often used during the
Iraq invasion, clearly is a fallacy. Bush creates
false dilemma where he pretends that there
are two options, where in fact there are many
others. George Bush was probably inspired
by Jesus, who said: “He who is not with me
is against me, and he who does not gather
with me scatters”. A more tricky application
of the false dilemma was used by Mark Rutte,
the leader of the Dutch liberal party, when he
claimed that “government expenditures must
be cut otherwise we will run into a budget
deficit”. Mark Rutte wants you to believe that
there are only two possible outcomes, where
of course there are other alternatives, such as
raising taxes.
Also politicians on the left are not without
fallacies. Agnes Kant, the leader of the
Dutch socialist party, is famous for quotes
like: “Yesterday I received an email from a
woman from the city of Lutjebroek who has
been waiting for three years for her medical
treatment. This proofs that our health care
system is a mess.” Apparently Agnes Kant
applies a model where significant results can
be derived on the basis of a sample size of
one observation.
Name:
should all become vegetarians”. Even if the Roel Mehlkopf
majority of voters believe in an idea, that does
not make it a good one. After all, there has
been broad support for slavery and fascism Position:
in the past and these things did not turn out PhD student
very well.
Finally, there is the slippery slope fallacy. That
fallacy was used by Maxime Verhagen, one of
the leaders of the Dutch Christian-Democrats,
when attacking a proposal of the Labour party
to reform the pension system by claiming that
“if we start to reform the pension system, then
future politicians will inevitably continue to
reform such that the whole pension system
will eventually dissapear.” The slippery slope
argument of Maxime Verhagen makes the
false assumption that a relatively small first
step inevitably leads to a chain of related
events culminating some kind of terrible
outcome.
So, these are some example fallacies. I leave it
up to you to find a lot more! |

Nekst 4 - June 2009 53

nekst4.indd 53 12-6-2009 12:00:35

 tud y ing in b uenos ai r es

e x change report

It was more than one and a half years ago that I started planning my exchange experience and it was more

than four months ago that I finally seated myself in a plane to start the adventure. Although my time in

Buenos Aires is not over yet, the editorial board of Nekst asked me to take a quick look back and share my

exchange experiences with the readers of its magazine.

Buenos Aires is often compared to Paris or to

New York City. It is one of the biggest cities
in the world (one and a half times the size of
New York City), but during the day you don’t
really notice this. Another thing about the
city is that it is divided into a lot of different
neighbourhoods, which are separate cities
in themselves, with their own atmosphere
and own centres. The neighbourhood in
which my apartment is located is one of
the richest neighbourhoods in the city, with
lots of clothes shops, restaurants, bars and
Apart from seeing more of the world, there
are of course more reasons why I chose to do
an exchange period. One of them was that I
did not yet want to enter the labour market
and look for a job. Another reason was that I
was up for a new challenge and that I wanted
to learn a new language. Also, meeting new
people, getting to know different cultures
and living in another kind of civilisation were
important reasons for me to choose to live
abroad for a while.

“Ac ce p t t h e c h a l l e n g e a n d t re a t yo u rself to an
Name:
Bart Verschoor
u n fo rg e t t a b l e ex p e ri e n ce ! ”
Age:
23 foreigners. Because this is one of the nicest Looking back I can definitely say that
areas of Buenos Aires, we spend most of our meeting different people and experiencing
days in our neighbourhood, with visits to the different cultures has been very interesting
Begin studies: other areas to explore more and more of the and a lot of fun. I share my apartment with
2004 city from time to time.
Buenos Aires is a city with more then twelve
million residents (if you include the suburbs),
which is over one third of the total number
of inhabitants of Argentina. Besides this,
Argentina is the eighth biggest country
in the world, which together result in lots
of uninhabited areas. Also, the Andes in
the west, the Atlantic Ocean in the east,
Antarctica in the south and the desert in
the North make Argentina a country with a
multitude of different, breathtaking nature
views. Besides exploring the city, one of the
things that I have been doing during my time
abroad is exploring more of South America.
Because this is the perfect time to see much
of the different landscapes I am trying to take
trips to the best places around like Uruguay,
Chili, Bolivia, Machu Picchu (Peru) and Rio de
Janeiro (Brazil). Monument in Buenos Aires

54 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 54 12-6-2009 12:00:39

 a German and two Americans, which
has given me the opportunity to learn
more about their lives at home and
has given rise to some interesting
discussions about the differences.
Apart from discussions about the
different cultures we, of course, also
exploite the different drinking games
and social rituals of each country.
Besides my roommates, I have friends
here from all over the world, ranging
from Spain to Canada and from Mexico
to Japan. the Argentineans, too, are in
general willing to make contact with
the foreigners. They are really helpful
if they notice that you could use some
help and they also like to spend time
with us.
My university in Buenos Aires,
Universidad Torcuato di Tella, is a small
private university. The university is
smaller than most secondary schools
in the Netherlands and has only 1200
undergraduate students. I have started
to appreciate the facilities of Tilburg
University more and more since I have
been here. Studying at the university
is almost impossible (besides the few
places they have in the basement,
but those do not really stimulate your
studying performances), therefore
I studied for my midterms in the
national library of Buenos Aires.
Normally, classes are attended by
somewhere between twenty and
thirty students and you have four
hours of theoretical lectures and two
hours practical per course each week.
The courses I am enrolled in are Money
& Banking, International Finance and
Politics & Economics. Each of them
are very interesting, especially since
they also look at the financial crisis
Argentina encountered in 2001 when
it defaulted on the biggest part of
its public debt and had to step away
from the fixed exchange rate the Peso
had with respect to the United States
Dollar.
Nekst 4 - June 2009 55
nekst4.indd 55
The academic level of the courses
is much higher than I had expected
it to be. This can of course be partly
explained by the fact that the Spanish
level makes the courses harder, but the
level of the courses in general is pretty
high as well. The university is often
called the Harvard of Latin America,
which gives you an idea of how the
Argentines look up to the university.
The level of the courses means that
we do have to keep up with the work
on our courses, but it also means that
the courses are very interesting and
challenging.
If I take a step out of reality and try to
observe myself living the Argentinean
life, I think I can say I am pretty
integrated by now. The high quality
wine and beef especially, are things
that I have got used to very quickly.
Also, the fact that Argentines in
general do not rush life is something
I have got used to, although I realise
that some people in the Netherlands
would like to argue that I was already
used to that back at home. The proud
nature of the Argentines is starting to
become a part of my life, too, although
the Dutch criticism of will of course
never disappear.
Colourful houses in Buenos Aires
Luckily, this is only a quick look back
and my period in Buenos Aires is not
over yet, but there is already one thing
I can say with certainty: I will undergo
some severe reverse homesickness
when my time in Argentina is over and
when the time comes to return to the
Netherlands. I will miss the Argentine
culture and the Argentineans, with their
love for their country and products. I
will miss the exploring nature of life
as an exchange student and I will miss
the challenge of starting in a totally
new environment. But most of all, will
I miss the friends whom I have made
here during the last couple of months,
some of which are definitely friends
for life.
If you doubt about going on an
exchange, I can definitely recommend
the experience. Altogether this period
has been one of the best periods
of my student life (together with
my year on the Asset| Econometrics
board). An exchange period is a
unique opportunity to explore more
of the world and to learn more about
different cultures and perhaps also
about yourself. My advice? Accept
the challenge and treat yourself to an
unforgettable experience! |
12-6-2009 12:00:44
 m b ition | de v e l opment |
S uccess
economic business week tilburg

Last April, the eleventh edition of the Economic Business week Tilburg (EBT) took place. During two weeks

students had the chance to come in contact with their preferred future employer. Besides that also a lot of

trainings, assessments, workshops, cases, high teas, dinners and other activities were possible.The programme

was most promising and many opportunities to match both parties were presented.

Now, the evaluations have been processed and
as the title already implied, we are proud to
say that the EBT 2009 was a sensation. Indeed,
in the end leads Ambition via Development
to Success.
Opening
Monday 30 March, 20.00 hours: the largest
career event of Tilburg University commences.
A team of seven men representing all study
associations of Asset, have been working very
hard for almost a year for this moment. After
a short word of welcome of the chairman of
the EBT organisation, the Vice Dean of the
Faculty of Business and Economics of Tilburg
Name: University, Harald Benink, officially opened
Sander van der Ploeg the week. After these two speeches, the
magicians’ duo Rob & Emiel started their show
full of magic and mystery. During an hour
Function: they amazed their public with a spectacular
Chairman EBT 2009 tailor-made show or as they call it a cocktail
of comedy, magic, theatre, interaction and
instructions for the first day of our event,
the Training Day. During this day twelve
companies provided one or two training
sessions. The training sessions varied from
application trainings, to network training, or
communication training. It was a day with
a complex logistic plan and we are very
satisfied that everything went well. During the
lunch and drink we received much positive
response from both students and companies,
so we can conclude that it was a good day.
Assessment Centre
The Wednesday was reserved for the
traditional Assessment Centre at the Willem
II Conference Centre. This day the students
got the opportunity to experience how it is
to practise the assessments that are regularly
used by application procedures for a job or
internship at a firm. During the day each
student had the possibility to participate
in three rounds of assessments. These three

“In total 54 companies presented themselves.”

surprise. The best act was saved for the last
ten minutes: although one of them was
blindfolded, he was able to “see” the correct
bank account number of a bankcard of a
random spectator sitting in the crowd. After
the show was ended the evening was closed
with an informal drink. It was a satisfying
evening and we were looking forward to the
next day since that would be the first day of
our EBT 2009.
Training sessions
About eight hours after Rob & Emiel were
said goodbye, everybody met again at
Tilburg University for a quick breakfast and
rounds were preceded by a plenary session
of Berenschot. In this plenary session the
general use and content of an assessment
was explained. It was a long and busy day
for both students and companies. However,
the beautiful location, the professional
ambiance, together with a very diverting and
enthusiastic field of companies, made this
day to a success.
Entrepreneurship & SME
The next day was divided in two different
themes. During the morning it was all about
Entrepreneurship. Four workshops were
offered for students, each focusing on a

56 Nekst 4 - June 2009

nekst4.indd 56 12-6-2009 12:00:44

 different stage in the development
as a (future) entrepreneur. Afterwards
a closing plenary lecture of Prof. Dr.
J. Vianen and student entrepreneur
Y. Soeteman about Entrepreneurship
was offered.
After the lunch, the Small- and Medium-
sized Enterprises (SME) companies had
the chance to present themselves to the
students of Tilburg University. During
a networking lunch the six companies,
originating from six different fields of
business, were present and afterwards
they gave workshops about what it is
like to work for a smaller company.
Accounting Activity
On Friday, all the Big Four companies
were invited to participate in a new
activity that was introduced this
year, the Accounting Activity. In the
morning, all the Accounting students
were able to see one of the Big Four
companies presenting themselves
during a workshop. Since the groups
were small, the workshop was very
interactive and all raised questions
were answered. In the afternoon all
students and representatives of the
The EBT comittee
Nekst 4 - June 2009 57
nekst4.indd 57
companies came together to learn
how to cook during a food workshop
in the city centre of Tilburg. In this
way, all students were able to talk to
all companies and see the differences
between them.
Companies
After the weekend only four days
were left. On Monday, Wednesday
and Thursday in total 54 companies
present themselves via company
presentations, workshops, high teas,
dinners and individual conversations
to the students of Tilburg University.
You can imagine that it is quite a puzzle
to make a well working schedule for
all those activities, representatives
of companies, different locations,
different time schedules and last but
certainly not least the students.
On Tuesday we went back to the Willem
II Conference Centre to welcome
students and nine companies for the
famous Case Day. The day started
with a small word of welcome by the
chairman of the EBT. After that the
companies gave some insights about
how the company looks like and
presented the case study. From that
point on students were divided into
groups and started solving this case.
After lunch, a couple of hours were
left to prepare and at the end of the
afternoon solutions were presented to
each other. Afterwards an informal drink
was organised and at the beginning of
the evening all the participants and
representatives of the companies were
invited to join for a luxurious dinner.
During the dinner an etiquette expert
learned everybody the tips and tricks
about what you should do and what
you certainly should not do during a
business dinner.
On the final day, still eighteen
companies were presenting themselves
via many activities (as was already
mentioned above), but also a renewed
activity was presented: the Informal
Activity. During this activity students
could participate in a business game
held in Holland Casino in Breda.
During this afternoon, first a tour was
made through the Holland Casino and
then a business game commenced.
For the duration of this game every
group of students together with the
representatives of the companies
were representing a party and had a
distinctive objective. In the end a game
was played by means of bargaining
and negotiation and every party was
trying to achieve their goal.
The EBT 2009 was a success and
together, as a team, we succeeded
to master the problems that we
encountered and we are proud to say
that during these days everything
went smoothly and no large problems
were run into. On behalf of the entire
EBT organisation, I would like to thank
all the volunteers and participants
for their help and support during our
event. We hope to see you all again for
next year’s edition! |
12-6-2009 12:00:51
 e l l ing Bonds
E x cursion ministry of finance
On the sixth of May we went to the Ministry of Finance in The Hague with a group that consisted of about
twenty people who are taking the second year course Orientation ME/EM. We met at Tilburg West train station
at 12 o’clock and arrived at The Hague Central Station at half past one. From there, the Ministry of Finance
was easy to reach on foot; it only took a five minute walk to get there.
For security reasons we had to identify our-
selves in order to be allowed into the building
of the Ministry. At two o‘clock the presenta-
tions started. First there was a general pres-
entation about the Ministry of Finance and
the agency. In this presentation we learned
about what econometricians within the Min-
istry of Finance do. This general presentation
was followed by a more specific presentation
about the Dutch Direct Auction (DDA), which
shed light on several aspects that were famil-
iar to most of us. Finally, we were instructed
to solve a case with respect to the DDA.
The group was divided into six smaller groups
Name: and each group represented a bank. The main
Dori van Hulst idea was that the Ministry of Finance had
some bonds for sale and we had to buy some
of them on behalf of the bank we represent-
Age: ed. Each bank received a list of ten customers
20 who were interested in buying a bond from
the government. For each customer, there
was information on how much profit they
Begin studies: wanted for each bond and how much they
2007 wanted to invest in the government bonds.
These profits were between 50 and 52 points.
However, as a bank we had to decide for our-
selves whether or not we wanted to increase
our expected profit by placing a bid that dif-
fered from our customers’ wishes. If we chose
to do so, this would be at the risk of not being
able to satisfy our customers’ wishes or buy-
ing a bond with a profit rate our customer is
not interested in. At the end of the bidding
period, the government would determine the
profit of the bonds, which was called the cut-
off price.
For example, if the government needed 100
Euros and they would get bids for a total of
50 Euros from banks to buy the bond with a
profit rate of 50, 70 Euros from banks at a prof-
it rate of 50.5 and 20 Euros, respectively, from
banks at a profit rate of 51, then the cut-off
58 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 58
price would be 50.5. This is because the gov-
ernment only needs 100 Euros and can sell
enough bonds at a price of 50.5. But of course
the banks do not know beforehand what the
cut-off price will be. If a company desires a
profit of only 50 for a bond, the bank could
place a bid indicating they want 50.5 points
profit. This way, the bank can try to raise the
cut-off price and keep the difference. This is
to the advantage of the banks, because they
receive the difference between the cut-off
price and the bid of the customer. If a com-
pany wants at least 52 and the bank indeed
tells the government they want 52 and the
cut-off price in the end turns out to be, say
51.5, there is no problem. But if the bank plac-
es a bid for 51.5 and the cut-off price is 51.5,
then the customer refuses it because he only
wanted to buy a bond with a profit rate of at
least 52. As a result, the bank would have to
sell the bond to someone else on the market.
This costs the bank money, so by indicating
another bid to the government than what the
customer wants, a risk is also involved.
From the above you are probably able to tell
that it was quite a complicated game and we
have still not even listed all of the rules of the
game. Nevertheless, it was a fun game to play
and everyone enjoyed it. Whilst the people
who did the presentations were calculating
which group was the winner, we were able to
have a drink and a chat outside the room. The
winner was the bank that earned the largest
amount of money in the end. There were two
groups that got the highest profit, so they
had to share the prize they won, which was
a nice bottle of wine. Although not all par-
ticipants could be a winner, everybody had a
great time.|
12-6-2009 12:00:51
 PriceWaterhouseCoopers

nekst4.indd 59 12-6-2009 12:00:51

 house w ith a l i v ing r oom ,
p l a y g r ound and some assets
living in lodges
Our visit to Varkensmarkt 11-1 does not start inside Stan van Workum’s house. No, it starts with Stan jumping
around in the playground across the street. “Well, actually it is the first time I have sat on this swing,” he
mentions while he jumps off the seat. He takes us inside and briefly shows us his room.“It is not that interesting
here, so let’s go into the living room.”
At first we smell the pasta – probably the
evening meal – and then we find two ladies
sitting on one of the three benches. “I am
being interviewed,” Stan says with a smile
– some eyebrows rise slightly – and to us he
says: “please sit down.”
A nice roommate
The bench is quite comfortable, as is the
whole living room with its open kitchen.
There is certainly enough space for Stan
and his six housemates. Stan joined them
about seven months ago. “In my first year of
Econometrics I was still living in Oss, but I did
miss something. You know, you just miss some
Name: part of your student life if you don’t live on
Stan van Workum your own. So I started looking for a room, my
criteria were: at least 18 m2 and no more than
300 Euros monthly rent. After some searching,
Begin studies: I saw this ad for a room that was 17 m 2 and
2007 that cost 280 euros so I thought I ought to
give it a try. Now I live here and I really enjoy
being here. The only thing is that my room is
Address: only 16 m 2 and I pay 312 euros per month, so
Varkensmarkt 11-1 I was a bit misled by the housing association.
I would have gone looking for another room,
if I did not like my housemates so much. I
Room surface: don’t think there are many student houses
16 m 2 where the students are as close as we are. We
maintain an ‘open-door-policy’, as we like to
call it. Besides the location is quite good, it
Monthly rent: is very close to the centre.” Stan’s roommates
312 euros are also very pleased with their choice. “He is
very enthusiastic, happy and he sings all the
time. Stan also likes to impress us by baking
omelettes and cooking a nice meal.” However,
one of his roommates has a theory: “Stan is a
nice guy, except when he plays his shooting
games on the computer. I think that is why he
is so nice. He gets rid of all his aggression by
playing those games.”
60 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 60
Cleaning, cooking and enjoying the –
hopefully – delicious meal are things Stan and
his roommates do together. In this house Stan
discovered a whole new world of cooking: the
oven. “I do eat a lot more pizza, in Oss we did
not have an oven. I also learned another thing
here: when I am cooking, I should not listen
to other people’s advice. Most of the time I
just buy some ingredients and make up the
recipe while I’m cooking. A few months ago
I was given all kinds of tips and advice about
how to cook beans, warm up the potatoes
etcetera. I listened to everybody and the
result was awful.” One of Stan’s roommates
confirms this by nodding.
Afterwards they like to drink coffee or tea and
watch television or play games. Stan points
at a bookshelf in the living room; it is filled
with games. Skip Bo and Singstar especially
are favourites in the house. “I always win
at Skip Bo and Matthijs is really good in
humming the songs with Singstar,” Stan says.
He is talking about his roommate Matthijs
Poorthuis, a fifth year econometrician, who
could not make it on the evening of the
interview due to his Vidar activities. One of
Stan’s roommates mentions that they all are
actively involved in student life, either in
student associations like Plato and Vidar or
study and sports associations. Asset is very
well represented by both a board member of
Asset | TOP-DOWN and the chairman of Asset,
who just moved to the Varkensmarkt. “Our
huisfeut,” according to Stan.
New sports
Stan is more the sports guy. He plays handball
at Camelot and back in Oss he dances both
ballroom and salsa. The dancing started a
few years ago, more as a joke that resulted
from some alcohol. “I was at a party and a
12-6-2009 12:00:52
 girl I knew kind of lost her dancing
partner, so I said that I could dance
and that I wanted to join her. I gave
her my number thinking she would
never call me and she did not, that
is until fifteen minutes before her
dancing lessons started. She texted
me asking whether I would like to
come, so I did. The people are very
nice and I always have a lot of fun,
especially after the lessons.” Dancing
is one of the many new things Stan has
tried, including gliding (zweefvliegen)
and waterskiing. “The problem is that
when I try something new, I love it, but
after a while I get used to it and then
begin to find it less interesting.” Stan
is rather good at dancing, he is already
getting a little bored though since he
picks up the new moves quite quickly.
When we ask Stan what he thinks of
the dancing styles of econometricians
in general, he answers with a question:
“What dancing style?”
Handball is another one of his
specialties. In his room we find two
shelves filled with medals. Two of
Stan in his room
Nekst 4 - June 2009 61
nekst4.indd 61
them are very special, they are gold
and stand for his victory at the beach
handball national championship.
There is also a nice medal for skiing
but though it looks gold, it was bronze.
Handball can be played not only in a
gym at the sports centre, but also at
the beach. Stan is chairman of the
tournament committee of Camelot
and in August there will be a big beach
tournament in Tilburg, the Camelot
TBSM. He is also organising a trip to
the Czech Republic to play another
beach handball tournament.
Famous
“That is just about how I fill my days,”
Stan says. “Besides studying, I play
handball, organise tournaments, like
to dance and I go to – almost – all
the activities organised by Asset |
Econometrics. I am actively involved
in the student association, together
with some of my econometrician
friends.” He met these people during
his TIK-week in 2007. “We started with
a group of, I think sixteen people and
in the end eight friends remained. We
study – or studied – together, go to a
lot of student activities and we go on
vacation. Last year we went to Valencia
and no I am not telling you where we
will be going this year. You know, we
are a little bit famous in our year,” Stan
says with a big smile on his face, “and I
am afraid people follow or stalk us.”
Besides making a lot of jokes and
talking about his passion for beach
handball, Stan also thinks about
his future. “I would really like to go
to Singapore for an internship or
something like that. When you take
a look at the skyline of that city, or
metropolis actually, you think a lot of
people must be working really hard
there; the word motivation is the first
thing that comes into my mind. They
must be very dedicated to their jobs.
That is why I would like to go there,
to experience the dedication and
strive for perfection. It is something I
miss here in the therlands and at our
university. Not that I am such a hard
worker, but I would be a pusher if my
environment were to encourage me
more.”
Sleepover
Finally, we ask Stan if we could take a
longer look at his room. It is a rather
calm, light room and then we notice
why. “I do not have any curtains yet,
but I don’t really miss them.” With pride
he shows us his shelves of medals and
his aquarium. Then all of a sudden, he
invites us for a sleepover. “Tomorrow
morning we all have to go to class so
then we can go together. I will sleep
on the couch and you can sleep in
my bed.” Well Stan you might think
you are famous, but you are not that
famous yet. So we kindly rejected the
invitation. Maybe some of you would
like to stay? Then you could at least
try to figure out where Stan and his
friends are going on vacation or you
might be surprised by one of Stan’s
omelettes. [MGS & TeB]
12-6-2009 12:00:55
 om b ining spo r ts and
economet r ics
practical report
Since I play draughts (sports!) on a high level, I wanted to combine draughts with Econometrics. Therefore
I decided to write a theoretical thesis instead of doing an internship. Several years I played championships
and considered the final ranking list unfair. However, there is no use for complaining when you cannot come
The setting
Consider 100 participants in a tournament.
At the end of the tournament we wish to
determine the number one, but also the
number 37, etcetera. We can only play nine
rounds, so it is not possible to play a round
robin tournament in which all participants
play against each other once. Since we play
only nine rounds, it is desirable that the
participants play against opponents with
approximately the same strength. Otherwise,
grumpy old men start complaining if they
have lost the first three rounds and have
to play against a grandmaster in the fourth
round.
Name:
Wouter Ludwig
Age:
23
Begin studies:
2004
Figure 1
The Swiss system
For these kind of tournaments the Swiss
system is being used. All players play the same
number of rounds. After each round we create
a ranking list. Based on the ranking list the
pairing of the next round is made. In this way
players will play against other players with
approximately the same strength. A more
important part of the Swiss system is how the
ranking list is determined. In the ranking list
the participants are primarily ranked on the
62 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 62
number of points scored. When participants
scored the same number of points (winning
gives two points, a draw gives one point and
if you lose you get nothing), they take the
Average Opponent Rating (AOR). If you have
faced strong opponents, you will end higher,
at least if you have scored the same number
of points. This sounds reasonable, but in fact
this is mathematically very wrong. First let
me explain a part of the rating system.
The rating system
In chess and in draughts we have a world-
ranking list in which all members are rated.
A high rating is given to strong players. Using
the normal distribution function (mean zero,
variance 200√2), we can compute the expected
scores when two players play against each
other (figure 1).
Taking the AOR to rank the participants is
blasphemy. Taking the average of two points
of a non-linear function is only allowed to
pretty blonds. An econometrician notices in
no time that it is more advantageous to play
against two players with approximately 300
12-6-2009 12:00:56
 rating points less than to play against
someone with 600 ratings points less
and someone with the same rating.
Tournament Performance Ratings
Take the Tournament Performance
Rating ( TPR) instead of the AOR. That is,
the rating that gives an expected score
equal to the number of points scored.
For example, the TPR of a player who
scores three points against two players
with ratings of 2200 and 2250 (master
level), is equal to 2417(grandmaster
level) with expected scores of 1.56 and
1.45.
The TPR has another advantage over
the current ranking system. There is
no more need to rank primarily on
the number of points and secondarily
on opponent strength, since the TPR
gives a perfect balance between score
and opponent strength.
Figure 2
Nekst 4 - June 2009 63
nekst4.indd 63
Stationary Tournament Performance
Rating
In my thesis I go a little further than
the TPR. I compute a TPR for all players,
such that if the ratings of all players
would be equal to their stationary TPR,
the tournament performance rating of
all players would also be equal to their
Stationary Tournament Performance
Rating (STPR) again. Such a STPR
exists for all players and is unique.
For the proof of this I refer to my
thesis “Comparing Swiss Tournament
Systems”.
Mathematically simplified:
A
participant: F(STPRo) = STPRp
In which F is a function that
computes the TPR of a player
(STPRp) given the STPR’s of the
opponents (STPRo)
Comparing Swiss Tournament
Systems
To proof that the ranking method
described above is better than the
currently used ranking method, it is
necessary to compare the systems in
a quantitative way. The ranking list
of a round robin competition can be
considered fair, since all players have
played against each other. A ranking
list after nine rounds can be considered
as a prognosis of the ranking list of the
round robin tournament. The deviation
between the ranking lists can be
measured in a quantitative way. With
simulation techniques we can show
with a high certainty that the ranking
method of the STPR is better than the
AOR ranking method. |
12-6-2009 12:00:57
 ooking w ith b eautifu l minds
cooking with the promotion committee
The promotion committee is proud to present to you Elske Leenaars & Pascal Heuijerjans as the cooks of
the evening. They made a delicious dish of tortellini carbonara and for dessert ‘dubbelvla’ with chocolate
sprinkles. The meal costs around 2,50 euros per person.
To r t e l l i n i w i t h c a r b o n a r a s a u c e & m u s h r o o m s
Shopping list
Four persons
¼ kg mushrooms
5*10 2 grams tortellini meat
30 2 + 10*2 2 grams pasta sauce carbonara
1 bag of Parmitalia cheese
e 0 teaspoon of salt
e 0 ‘Pak Dubbelvla’, stirred not shaken
Chocolate sprinkles
Recipe for tortellini with carbonara sauce and
mushrooms
Take a pan with enough water and let the water boil. Boiling
the water takes about ten minutes. Meanwhile, wash the
mushrooms and slice them into pieces. If you are finished
with the mushrooms and the water is still not boiling, then
you have probably not been precise enough about slicing the
mushrooms. If you have been precise enough, the tortellini
can be put into the water. Do not forget to add a little bit
of salt. Now you have to wait about ten minutes before you
can add the mushrooms to the tortellini. The tortellini is
best served al dente. Take the pan off the cooker and drain
the water. Put the sauce in the pan and heat it a little, so
that everything is nicely warm. Now your meal is ready to
be served! If you prefer, you can put the cheese on your
tortellini.
64 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 64
Recipe for stirred but not shaken ‘dubbelvla’ with
chocolate sprinkles
Find four bowls, one for each person. DO NOT shake the
‘dubbelvla’. If you shake it, the whole meaning of ‘dubbelvla’
is ruined. Put a portion of ‘dubbelvla’ in your bowl. Then the
fun part has started now: you can decorate your dessert with
chocolate sprinkles. Now you are allowed to stir the dessert.
Make sure that the chocolate sprinkles are well distributed
according to a uniformly divided distribution. Enjoy your
dessert!
Reaction from Stefan Damen
After a busy day at the Astrics room I like it very much
when I can, as it is called in Dutch: ‘aanschuiven’. As a real
Burgundian, I like everything I can eat. But on this evening
I ate one of the best student meals! Because we were with
only one woman and three guys, there was one dominant
strategy: eat as much as you can! So I took the biggest plate
(diameter sqrt(2) * 2 3 cm) to fill it with the delicious Tortellini
Carbonara made by beautiful minds.
The dinner was good, the dessert was the best! A nice mixed
strategy of chocolate pudding and vanilla custard was very
tasty. As a matter of fact, it was the second time we had eaten
this nice dessert with the committee. So maybe it is an idea
to introduce this as a tradition, if you are going to eat with
your committee?
Reaction from Timo Deist
I do very much agree with Stefan, although I do not
understand his Dutch, finishing off the day with a nice dinner
is perfect. My focus lies on the sum of quality and quantity
and this dish comes off quite well. Even though it seems
to be a rather straight forward dish, one can refine it with
different spices and cheese. Since the major taste is based
on the sauce, everyone should make sure he or she finds the
right brand which fits his personal taste.
Concerning the dessert: No one should ever shake the
‘dubbelvla’, not even stir it. That ruins the whole idea
of ‘dubbelvla’. Certain members of our committee have
developed the sadistic habit of torturing innocent vla-
epicures, who I will not name here. So, bear in mind: Please,
do NOT shake the vla! Please!! |
12-6-2009 12:00:58
 A n int r oduction to the
int r oduction acti v it y
C ommittee P rofile
In the first week of September the Introduction Activity will take place for the first time. The idea behind this
activity is that freshmen will get to know each other better at the beginning of their courses. During this day
we will play a lot of games in which the participants will have to compete with each other but also cooperate
with one another.
An introduction
The Introduction Activity Committee 2009
consists of four members. These four members,
who intend to organise an unforgettable day,
are Anouk Rennen (chairman), Marleen Balvert
(secretary), Stefan Damen (coordinator)
and I am the treasurer. For obvious reasons,
we are the very first committee to organise
this day, as this will be the first time such
an introduction activity will take place. As a
result, there are a lot of possibilities but, on
the other hand, it will also demand a lot of
creativity from the members.
Our mission
The committee started the project with the
intention of transforming the large group of
freshmen into one big cosy group of both
Dutch students and foreign ones. We know
from previous years that groups that were
formed during MAK camp and TIK week stick
together for a long time. So we figured it was
our aim to: familiarise students enrolled in
Econometrics with each other. Therefore, this
activity has not been introduced to compete
with MAK camp or TIK week, but solely to
complete the introduction. Furthermore, it
has proven rather difficult to reach the new
first year students in order to bind them with
our association. In this way we hope that
freshmen will become more familiar with
Asset | Econometrics, so they can benefit from
our association just like we do. Ultimately,
Asset | Econometrics might end up with more
active members from the first year.
The activity
During the meetings we decided that the
introduction activity must contain elements
that force students to cooperate and
communicate with each other, as we believe
this would be the best way to get to know each
Nekst 4 - June 2009 65
nekst4.indd 65
other. After investigations by all committee
members and a brainstorming session, we
had a big list of ideas. Subsequently, we
made a selection of all these great ideas and
created an initial and rudimentary set up of
the day.
The introduction activity will take place in
the first week of the new academic year. It
will last a full day with many different games
located in and around Tilburg University. The
lectures will be rescheduled. Students will be
split up into different groups and together
they have to get as many points as they
can by winning different games, in order to
receive the coveted freshmen award 2009. Name:
But be aware! Not everyone in your group is Wilbert Kistemaker
to be trusted. There will be an unknown group
member who has other intentions during the
different games. Participators need courage, Age:
human knowledge, intelligence and initiative 19
to achieve the result they want. It will be a
day full of trust and distrust but most of all; it
will be an entertaining day. Begin studies:
2007
At the end of the day we will have a barbecue.
We hope to be able to invite our active
members to this barbecue as well, although
this is not certain yet because of the rather
tight budget. If active members do join in,
freshmen will have the opportunity to hear
more about our association and then perhaps
Asset | Econometrics will appeal to them
and they will become active members, too.
Whether or not they will become active, they
will certainly not forget Asset | Econometrics
quickly!
If it is up to us, which it is, the introduction
activity will succeed in all its goals. We are
looking forward to realising our ideas and to
making it an unforgettable day! |
12-6-2009 12:01:02
 athematics on ho l ida y

S ummer photo contest

Nekst is excited to announce the second Asset | Econometrics photo contest. The contest will gather pictures

from around the world on the theme of you and a nice mathematical related object, like an equation or a

certain famous pattern. The most original picture will win an original ‘vlaai’ or a crate of beer.

The rules are simple: email us a picture that shows both you and Entering a submission to this competition constitutes
a mathematical object you encountered on your holiday. The acceptance of the rules.
submission deadline is 1 September, 2009. Several submissions
will be published in the first edition of next year’s Nekst.

Rules for entry

Entries must be received before 1 September, 2009 via
Nekst@Asset-Econometrics.nl.
Entries should show both the mathematical object and the
member that enters the contest.
It is forbidden to edit your submission with Photoshop or
any other photo-editing program.
Entries will be assessed for originality by this year’s and next
year’s editors-in-chief.
All Asset | Econometrics members and members of the
Department of Econometrics and Operations Research, may
join the competition.
No correspondence will be entered into.
Photoshop is not allowed

l anning
to conclude

Friday, 10 July Tuesday, 8 September

Beach Day General Members Meeting & Drink
Having finished all exams and (hopefully not too many) resits, On Tuesday, 8 September the candidate board will be
it is time to enjoy the summer: Asset | Econometrics will head inaugurated. They will share their plans for the upcoming
for the beach of Scheveningen this day. Let the sun shine! year. Afterwards there will be a drink.

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 M enta l A r ithmetic t r aining

P uzzle

For the last time this academic year you have the opportunity to solve an Asset | Econometrics puzzle and

to possibly win nice prizes. In order to solve the puzzle you have to posses above average mental arithmetic

skills, as this edition’s puzzle is about solving a long division. All that remains to say is Good Luck!

The puzzle: what does the complete long division look like?
..9/6.8...\.53 That is, what are the numbers that are to be placed on the
...2 dots?
-------
.9.. Please send your solution to the puzzle to Nekst@Asset-
..4. Econometrics.nl before 1 September, 2009. The previous
------- puzzle, the Kwon Tom Loop puzzle was solved by many
..4. members. Therefore, Nekst chose a winner at random. The
.... lucky winner is Heidi Veugen. She can pick up a crate of beer
------- or a ‘vlaai’ at the Asset | Econometrics room. For the winner of
0 this final puzzle, the same prize will be waiting. |

r aduates
congratulations

Over the past months, the following econometricians obtained their Master’s degree. Asset | Econometrics

would like to congratulate:

Name : Mrs. M. Berenpas (Master) QFAS

Titel : Inflation Risk and the FTK Name : Mrs. M.A. Meulenberg(Master) ORMS
Supervisors : Dr. R.J.A. Laeven, Prof.dr. J.M. Schumacher Title : Divisible Design Graphs
Supervisors : Prof.dr.ir. W.H. Haemers

Name : Mr. S.D. Hooghwerff (Master) QFAS

Title : An individual-claim copula model for Name : Mr. T.O. Michielsen(Master) MEEM
the volatility of non-life insurance loss Title : Operational Efficiency in Public and
reserves Private Postal Companies: An Empirical
Supervisors : Dr. F.C. Drost, Mrs. drs. W. Montulet RBA, Analysis
Dr. B. Kramer Supervisors : Dr. M.H. ten Raa

Name : Mrs. A.A.M. Loonen (Master) QFAS Name : Mrs. J. Oosthuizen (Master) QFAS
Title : Segregated fund guarantees, modeling Title : A Stochastic Discount Factor Approach
and hedging interest rate and equity to VAR Models
derivatives Supervisors : Prof.dr. J.M. Schumacher, Prof. dr. B.
Supervisors : Prof.dr. J.M. Schumacher, Mr.prof.dr. Melenberg
Boshuizen

Nekst 4 - June 2009 67

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 uatsch !
remarkable 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 Nekst@Asset-Econometrics.nl!
Dutch quotes
Emy van der Wielen: “Ik heb niet zo veel verstand van politiek, ik
weet niet eens wat links en wat rechts is.”
Linda Vos bij het concert van The Sheer in de 013: “Hee, van wie is
dit nummer eigenlijk?”
Tijdens het toetje van het cycling dinner:
Frank Steenbergen: “Hmm, er zit iets in dat smaakt naar koek, dat
is erg lekker. Wat is dat?”
Tim van der Molen Kuipers: “Koek.”
Marleen Balvert tegen Linda Vos als ze de waterkoker wil aanzetten
en op een knopje drukt: “Hey, werkt deze op batterijen?”
Tijdens het cycling dinner doet Freerk Post geheimzinnig over
een meisje.
Freerk: “Jullie mogen haar naam raden. Het begint met een ‘T’ en
eindigt op ‘essa’.”
Hettie Boonman: “Sabine!”
Linda Vos tegen Marije Alblas over het gestolen bord van Asset |
Econometrics: “Ik vind het echt triest dat mensen zoiets jatten en
ook gewoon niks van zich laten horen. Als je nou iets jat van de
gemeente of zo...”
Stephanie van Breda de maandag na het ALW tegen Evelien
Kerkmeijer: “Je mag wel een appel uit deze zak, die zijn toch op.”
Joris van Raak tijdens RavA tegen Marije Alblas: “Maar jij kan daar
als onzijdig persoon natuurlijk een belangrijke rol in spelen.”
Ruud Hendrickx tijdens Oriëntatie MEEM over de case van dat
vak: “Het ging best goed. Ik had nog 1 kilo M&M’s voor mezelf.
Stefan Damen: “Ja, dat is te zien.”
Robert de Veer tijdens de RavA: “Technische bedrijfskunde is
Econometrie light.”
Tim van der Molen Kuipers komt op 5 mei ‘s avonds het bestuur
tegen op station Tilburg: “Hebben jullie Bevrijdingsdag gevierd
in Haarlem?’”
Stefan Damen: “Nee, in Wageningen.”
Tim: “Vieren ze daar ook Bevrijdingsdag dan?”
Marleen Balvert: “Een pimpelmeesje is toch pimpelpaars?”
68 Nekst 4 - June 2009
nekst4.indd 68
Stephanie van Breda tegen Linda Vos: “Hee Linda, zit hier SBS 6
op de computer?” (SPSS, red.)
Bart Kruize tijdens de OID vergadering als er een discussie is of
we een spreker in de ochtend of in de namiddag willen: “Dat ligt
eraan of hij een ochtendmens is.”
Linda Vos tegen Paul Peters: “Hoe ging de Kennedyloop?”
Paul: “Ja, goed. Ik was uiteindelijk als twee na laatste binnen van
de vier. Dus ja, als tweede eigenlijk. “
Emile van Elen: “We moeten kaarten hebben, we gaan Mexxen.”
Marleen Balvert: “Maar dan moet je k toch uitrekenen?”
Stan van Workum: “Nee, die vervang je gewoon door c.”
Frank Steenbergen tegen Professor Einmahl: “Maakt u altijd al
een deel voor dit tentamen?”
Professor Einmahl: “Nou, niet altijd, ik ben pas 32. Nou ja, plus
epsilon dan.”
English quotes
Hettie boonman: “I only know a few words Dutch (Editorial note:
German).”
Tim Boonen: “Not wising at other people.”
Servaas takes the jack from a staple of card: “I have the farmer.”
Linda Vos asks a foreign student from China: “What is the English
word for ‘Swa’?”
Professor Talman: “Do not expect this to be good, I do it out of
my mind!”
Linda Vos: “There is a party of an association that celebrates its
twentytwoth birthday.”
Professor Talman: “Through the i’s I cannot see the 1’s anymore.”
Linda Vos: “We are going to visit Arnoud Klep and his women.”
Professor Talman while explaining an equation: “What went to
the right is right, so what is left should also be right.”
Linda Vos while playing Kingzen: “And then you need to add.”
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 SNS REAAL

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 NIBC

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