PhD Defense S.L. Zhou

This dissertation studies how innovation and investment decisions affect various aspects of the macroeconomy, both in terms of real economic activities such as output and resource use, and from the monetary and financial aspects including money demand and monetary policy. The first chapter investigates how directed technical change may stimulate clean innovations and phase out polluting technologies, and highlights the role of self-fulfilling prophecies in the transition towards green growth. The second chapter addresses the interactions between resource-saving innovations and policies that promote a “circular economy” (CE), and analyzes the overall economic impact of CE policies, taking into account their short- and long-term impact on resource-saving innovations. The third chapter turns to the monetary side of the economy, and explores the recent fintech phenomenon of cryptocurrencies. It investigates the demand-side features of cryptocurrencies and their implications for the broader economy. 

Sophie Zhou (Hubei, China, 1983) received a Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Mannheim in Germany in 2009. After a few years in the private sector, she returned to academia and graduated first in class with a MSc degree in Agricultural and Food Economics at the University of Bonn in Germany. After two years of working as a research and teaching assistant at the same university, she joined the Economics Department of Tilburg University in September 2016 as a PhD student. During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting PhD student at the London School of Economics in the UK and the University of Wisconsin Madison in the US. In September 2020, she joined the Research Centre of Deutsche Bundesbank as a research economist.

• Location: Cobbenhagen building, Aula 
• Supervisors: Prof. J.A. Smulders, Prof. R Gerlach