We’re open! Reflections by Professor Piet Eichholtz
Fewer meetings are being held, education is being provided in a different way, and some scientific studies are affected by the coronavirus pandemic. But Maastricht University is open! Within the available opportunities, staff and students are doing everything in their power to remain active and productive. In the story series ‘We’re open!’ on the university website, you can read about these members of our community.
This week, Piet Eichholtz, Professor of Real Estate Finance at the School of Business and Economics, reflects on how the coronavirus crisis is ineluctably embedded in economic, political and ethical issues.
Open letter
Piet Eichholtz stays home a lot and is busy redesigning his courses to get the most out of online education. But he has also caused a stir in national politics as one of the co-signatories of an open letter in one of the Netherlands’ major broadsheets, de Volkskrant.
In it, 80 prominent Dutch economists criticised the initial stance of the Netherlands – as represented by Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra – to obstruct a support package to prevent the economic collapse of the countries hit hardest by the outbreak of COVID-19. “My colleague Arnoud Boot from Amsterdam wrote the letter and sent it around to economists. Some thought that it was too harshly phrased – but I strongly support the point and was happy to sign.”
