Bart van Ark is vice president and chief economist of The Conference Board. He leads a team of 20-plus economists who produce a portfolio of widely watched economic indicators and growth forecasts, as well as in-depth global economic research. A Dutch national, he is the first non-U.S. chief economist in The Conference Board's 90-year history.
Van Ark is an internationally recognized expert in international comparative studies of economic performance, productivity, and innovation. He previously was The Conference Board's consulting director of international economic research for 10 years, responsible for its annual flagship publication on productivity and instrumental in helping expand its comparative analytical capabilities to look at productivity and labor- and consumer-market research across countries and regions.
Van Ark continues to steward The Conference Board's longstanding research collaboration with the University of Groningen in the Netherlands; a professor there since 2000, he holds the university's chair in Economic Development, Technological Change and Growth.
Van Ark obtained his master's and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Groningen. From 1988 to 1990 he worked as a research associate with the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (UK) on international comparisons of economic performance in Europe. He has participated in such international research projects as the Productivity Research Program of the McKinsey Global Institute, the CEPR Program on Comparative Experience of Economic Growth in Postwar Europe, and European Commission programs on productivity. He also was director of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, a research group of economists and economic historians examining long-run economic growth and international comparisons of economic performance for Europe, Asia, and North and South America.
Van Ark has been extensively published in national and international journals, including the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Economic Policy, the Review of Income and Wealth and The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. He is a member of the editorial boards of several academic journals and serves on various advisory committees in the areas of productivity and national accounts.
Publications
Executive Action