Rick van der Ploeg is economist en former politician. He has been University Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Amsterdam since 1 November 2020.
Van der Ploeg focuses on research and education in the field of environmental economics, covering the economic aspects of climate change, biodiversity and resource depletion, as well as broader social and political aspects.

Biography Rick van der Ploeg
Rick van der Ploeg is Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and Co-Director of the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies. Until recently, he was a Professor at the European University Institute, Florence (2003-07). Before that, he was State Secretary in the Kok cabinet (1998-2002), responsible for culture and media. Before that, he was affiliated with the Universities of Cambridge, the London School of Economics and the Universities of Amsterdam and Tilburg.

His research interests are numerous. He is currently working on the economics of natural resources and globalization. He received his PhD from King's College, University of Cambridge in 1981 under the supervision of the late Sir Richard Stone, Nobel Prize winner in Economics.