Frank A.G. den Butter (1948) is a policy oriented political economist. He studied econometrics at the University of Amsterdam and obtained his PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam. From 1973-1988 he worked at the Netherlands Central Bank and was involved in economic modelling, policy analysis and research management. Since 1988 he is professor of economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and founded the research team ALERT (Applied Labour Economics Research Team) which has meanwhile obtained an excellent international reputation in its field. From 1989-1996 he was a director of the Tinbergen Institute. From 1998-2002 he was member of the multidisciplinary Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) at the Prime Minister’s office in The Hague. It the major advisory council on long term prospects for strategic government policy. As member of the council he was, amongst others, responsible for the report on “The Netherlands as a trading nation” which was published in 2003 and initiated the founding of the Research Institute for Transaction Management (RITM).
Moreover, Frank den Butter has been chairman of the Royal Netherlands Economic Association (the oldest economists’ association in the world) from 1997-2003 (KVS) and was member of the Central Statistical Committee, the supervisory committee of the Central Bureau of Statistics, (CBS) from 1998-2004. Since 1993 he is member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). He was member of the economic policy committee of the Social Economic Council (SER), and chaired various academic and governmental committees and bodies. He was chairman of the supervisory committee of the Economic Institute for the Building Industry (EIB) and was involved in research and advisory projects with former prime ministers Lubbers and Balkenende. Outside the Netherlands he has been member of the board of European Association of Labour Economists (EALE) and acted as consultant for OECD, ILO, the government of Ethiopia and the IAB. He also acted as member of the Netspar council for VU University
At present he is member of the board and secretary of the Stichting mr. N.G. Pierson fonds and member of the scientific advisory council of the Wim Dreesfonds at KHMW
