Peter De Keyzer

Peter De Keyzer (born 23 April 1975^[1] in Etterbeek) one of the municipalities of Belgium’s capital city, Brussels, is a Belgian economist, currently serving as Chief Economist of BNP Paribas Fortis, part of the BNP Paribas banking group.

In 2014, he was awarded the Prize for Liberty by Nova Civitas.^[2]

Economic considerations

Peter De Keyzer is, among other things, a strong proponent of the principle of a basic universal income. In a recent article in leading Dutch-language business newspaper De Tijd he argues: “A guaranteed basic income provides a solution for people with few job skills. Nowadays a lot of relatively uneducated people have too little to offer in order to warrant even the gross minimum wage. Today someone who is able to deliver only 700 euros of added value per month will not find an official job because an employer would be obliged to pay him or her not less than the gross national minimum wage of 1500 euros. This means that people with low educational qualifications remain unemployed, living on a social security allowance of 1100 euros. Setting a guaranteed basic income of 800 euros would solve the problem for both employers and the unemployed. The undereducated can get a job and will have much more left over for themselves at the end of the month than someone who is not working at all. Meanwhile the employer can afford to hire such people at a wage level that makes them worth their pay.”^[3]

At the same time, Peter De Keyzer argues for a free market economy in which prosperity and growth are driven not by state intervention but by a process of ‘creative destruction’. He recently wrote on this subject: "Are we poorer today because people no longer plough the fields manually or weave carpets by hand? Or because dairy farmers do not bring bottles of milk round to our houses anymore? New technologies foster greater prosperity and boost purchasing power. And we will be spending this money and these resources on services, products and experiences that we cannot imagine today. Of course this does not make life any easier for people whose jobs are at stake today. However, you are not going to help those people by entertaining misplaced nostalgia about how everything used to be better before and making attempts to hang on to doomed jobs. What will help, though, is thinking seriously about how they can contribute to prosperity going forward."^[4]

Biography

a. Education

Peter De Keyzer completed his secondary education at the Our Lady of Lourdes College in Edegem, obtaining his high school diploma (Sciences option) in 1993. He then pursued higher education studies at the University of Antwerp, where he was awarded a Master’s degree in Economics in 1998, graduating ‘magna cum laude’.^[5]

He obtained a PhD in Applied Economic Sciences, awarded ‘cum laude’, in 2000^[6] His final paper was entitled: ‘Is there an optimal degree of central bank independence?’

During his time at ABN AMRO, he followed a special Managing for Growth programme in 2007 and obtained a diploma in Advanced Risk Management from the Solvay Master Class at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (‘Free University of Brussels’) in 2008.

b. Professional Career

From October 1998 to December 2000, Peter De Keyzer served as a Research & Teaching Assistant to Professor André van Poeck and Professor Bruno De Borger in the Economics faculty of the University of Antwerp.

He then worked successively as an Economist at KBC Asset Management (January 2001 to December 2005), Chief Investment Advisor at ABN AMRO Private Banking Belgium (January 2006 to August 2009) and Chief Economist at Petercam (September 2009 to April 2011).

Since April 2011, Peter De Keyzer has served as Chief Economist at BNP Paribas Fortis, succeeding Freddy Van Spiegel who had previously held the post for 35 years.

c. Other Activities

Since 2004 Peter De Keyzer has been a regular Guest Lecturer at the University of Antwerp for students from Marquette University in Milwaukee, USA taking part in the ‘Antwerp Programme’, and has lectured on the subject of ‘The European Union in the World Economy’ to undergraduate exchange students on the Georgetown MBA programme.

Since 2008, Dr De Keyzer has been Guest Lecturer on the Master of Financial and Estate Planning programme run by Antwerp Management School, speaking on the subject of ‘The Macro Environment and Financial Markets’.

From 2011 to 2014, Peter De Keyzer taught on ‘Demographic Ageing and Financial Markets’ at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Since 2009, he has been a member of the Bank Economists panel advising Febelfin, the Belgian financial sector federation.

In addition, Peter De Keyzer writes a twice-monthly column for Belgian Dutch language business daily newspaper De Tijd and its French-language sister publication L’Echo, and has also been a regular contributor to several other financial press organs on such topics as: demography, economic growth, the euro zone and financial affairs.^[7] His book ‘Growth Makes You Happy – An Optimist’s View of Progress and the Free Market’ has been reviewed on the World Economic Forum^[8] website.

Peter De Keyzer is a member of the Advisory Board of the Economics faculty at the University of Antwerp.

Expertise

Peter De Keyzer’s main fields of expertise are the European economy, the euro zone, issues around ‘Japanisation’, the work of the European Central Bank, Quantitative Easing and Education.

Bibliography

Peter De Keyzer is the author of ‘Growth Makes You Happy – An Optimist’s View of Progress and the Free Market’.

According to Sam Peltzman, Professor Emeritus of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, Peter De Keyzer’s book is a “wake-up call, not only for his fellow-Europeans, but for all of us in the developed countries.”

Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, has stated: “Europe needs to hear the message of freer markets and stronger economic growth, and this book is one very good place to start.”^[9]

Herman Daems, Chairman of the Board of Directors of BNP Paribas Fortis, points out that “Peter De Keyzer is one of the most influential economists of his generation. He is no colourless accountant but a man of creative ideas that are well worth reading.”

Peter De Keyzer also writes a blog in which he regularly sets out his economic analyses.^[10]

References