Behavioural economist, PvdA chair, and co-chair of Progressief Nederland
Part of: Dutch Politics
Esther-Mirjam Sent is a professor of Economic Theory and Economic Policy at Radboud University in Nijmegen and has been chair of the PvdA (Labour) since October 2021. With the merger into Progressief Nederland, she becomes one of the party's two co-chairs alongside Katinka Eikelenboom.
She's an unusual figure in Dutch politics: a serious academic economist (doctorate from Stanford under Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow) who moved into party leadership. Her research covers behavioural economics, experimental economics, and the history and philosophy of economic science — with a focus on limited rationality, emotion, and gender in economic frameworks.
The PvdA half of the PRO merger needed credible economic leadership that wasn't just left-wing messaging. Sent brings academic weight to the party's economic arguments — particularly on inequality, public investment, and behavioural aspects of policy design (why people don't always act in their own economic interest, and what government can do about it).
She also teaches a master's seminar on the future of political parties in democracy — a topic that has some personal relevance given she's helping to reshape one.
As PvdA chair through the merger period, she was central to negotiating the terms of the GroenLinks-PvdA combination. Her counterpart on the GroenLinks side is Katinka Eikelenboom. Jesse Klaver is the parliamentary face; Sent and Eikelenboom run the party organisation.
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