Gerard Pfann is professor of econometrics at the School of Business & Economics of Maastricht University and Guest Professor at the Swedish Institute of Social Studies at Stockholm University. Gerard developed a novel multi-disciplinary research methodology, called The Informed-Observer Approach to Decision Making in Firms, which combines in-depth interviews with firms’ decision makers, employee surveys, internal company data, data analytics combined with empirical micro-econometrics, aiming to improve the reality in the modeling of firms’ dynamic decision-making processes. A 5-years appointment as Akademie Onderzoeker granted by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen enabled him to develop this research methodology. The Netherlands Research Council awarded the Informed-Observer Approach with the NWO-PIONIER grant, which led to the foundation of the Business Investment Research Center (BIRC) at Maastricht University. Gerard Pfann is the founding editor of the Journal of Empirical Finance. He acted as Editor-in-Chief for the European Economic Review for more than a decade.