Marcel Timmer is professor of Economic Growth and Development at the University of Groningen and director of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC). He participates in various international programs funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the European Commission in the areas of international comparisons of productivity, technological and structural change and economic growth. He was co-leading the recent World Input-output Database (WIOD) project. The WIOD has developed new databases, accounting frameworks and models to increase our understanding of the socio-economic and environmental consequences of increasing global integration. He has been a consultant and advisor for various organisations including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and METI. He has been associate managing editor of the Review of Income and Wealth and extensively published in national and international journals and books.