B. M. S. van Praag studied econometrics at the University of Amsterdam where he defended his dissertation on "Individual Welfare and the Theory of Consumer Behaviour" cum laude in 1968. Between 1969 and 1992 he held consecutive positions as Professor at the Free University of Brussels, Associate Professor at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Professor of Economics at the University of Leiden, and Professor at Erasmus University. In 1992 he was appointed Professor in Applied Economic Research at the University of Amsterdam and Managing Director of the Foundation for Economic Research. In 2000 he became University Professor at the University of Amsterdam. He was the founding president of the European Society for Population Economics, and has been co-editor of the Journal of Population Economics, a member of the Dutch Social Economic Council, and a member of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy.

Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell graduated in Economics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1994. In 1997 she received a Fulbright scholarship to do graduate studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) (Troy, NY, USA), where she obtained an M.S. in Economics. In 1999 she joined the Faculty of Economics and Econometrics at the University of Amsterdam and the Tinbergen Institute Amsterdam, where in 2003 she obtained her PhD on applied welfare economics supervised by B.M.S. van Praag. In the same year, she obtained a second PhD on ecological economics from RPI. She currently works for the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies at the University of Amsterdam.