Jacques van der Gaag is professor of Development Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business. He served as Dean of the Faculty from 1998 till 2006, during which period he founded the University of Amsterdam Business School. Prior to coming to the UvA, he held various positions at the World Bank in Washington D.C., including Chief Economist of the Human Development Network.

He studied econometrics at the Erasmus University and received his PhD from Leyden University. He was a visiting professor at the Department of Economics, and a research fellow at the Institute for Research on Poverty, both at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

His research interests include the economics of health, education economics, poverty, and social policies. He has published widely in refereed journals and books, and served on the editorial board of the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Health Economics, the World Bank Economic Review, and The Lancet.

He is co-founder and co-director of the Amsterdam Institute for International Development, and senior economic advisor of the Health Insurance Fund. He currently holds the position of Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington, where he studies international health care financing as well as the economic consequences of AIDS.