Thomas de Graaff is an associate professor in the department of Spatial Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is an econometrician by training and his focus is mostly on empirical spatial (both regional and urban) economics with some applications in the transportation field. He did both his Master (econometrics) and PhD (spatial economics) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Thomas' research covers different facets of spatial (or even geographical) economics, where he is interested in the socio-economic behaviour of individuals with respect to the environment they live in. His research focuses on the (spatial) interaction between economic agents, such as with migration, tourism, (tele-)commuting and trade. As such, his research is mostly empirical in nature and uses mainly observational data.

Thomas has publised on social interaction of criminals, tourism flows within Europe, spatial dependence within European regional growth, meta-analysis of agglomeration externalities, substitution between telework and commuting, location behaviour of migrants, and heterogeneous preferences of location behaviour.

Research interests:

• Reproducability issues (including the use of meta-analyses)
• Bayesian multilevel models in the field of spatial economics
• Tourism and airline networks
• Working from home and its effects on traffic behaviour, housing and welfare
• Measuring general well-being
• Climate change and urban environments 

Thomas teaches bachelor and master courses in four programs: Economics and Business economics, Earth, Economics and Sustainability, Spatial and Applied economics, and Transport & Supply Chain Management. The topics of his courses are foced on applied econometrics, networks analysis and regional & urban economics. 

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