Bart Verspagen is an economist specialised in the economics of  technological change. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Limburg (now called Maastricht University) in Maastricht, the Netherlands, from 1984-1988. He obtained a Ph.D. degree from the same university in 1992. During the five years subsequent, he held a scholarship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He currently works at the Economics Department of Maastricht University, as well as at the UNU Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT). At the university, he holds the chair of International Economics.

Verspagen’s research interests are fairly broad. The centre area is the process of economic growth, and its relation to technological change. This also brings him into areas such as international trade theory, industrial dynamics, economic and technology history, and applied econometrics, statistics and mathematical modelling. With regard to the latter, he has mainly been applying evolutionary theory to economics. This includes simulation modelling of international economies.