Jozef Marie Mathias "Jo" Ritzen (born 3 October 1945) is a retired Dutch politician of the Labour Party (PvdA) and economist.

Ritzen worked as a civil engineering consultant in Bangladesh from August 1976 until April 1978 and as a visiting professor of Education economics at the University of California, Berkeley from September 1978 until May 1979.

Ritzen also worked as a distinguished visiting professor at the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from February 1988 until November 1989.

Rtizen served as acting Minister of Welfare, Health and Culture following the resignation Hedy d'Ancona, holding both positions from 16 July 1994.

He received his PhD degree in 1976 from the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam with the thesis "Education, economic growth, and income inequality metrics".

In 1988-1989 he was a visiting distinguished professor at the Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.

He is now honorary professor of Maastricht University, senior advisor to the International Institute of Labor Studies IZA in Bonn, member of the International Advisory Board of RANEPA (Moskou) and KAU (Jeddah), adviser to several ministers of education, Chair and Founder of Empower European Universities and Initiator of the Vibrant Europe Forum, whose goal is to contribute to the European Parliamentary Elections in the areas of innovation, higher education, research, labour market, greening and income equality policy.

He is also the President of the Conflict and Education Learning Laboratory, a non-profit foundation, registered in the Netherlands, which is dedicated to working for an international agreement to reduce divisive stereotypes in school textbooks.