The purpose of our paper is to propose a definition of progress based on the relationship between economic development and civil development, according to the lesson of Classical authors, especially Adam Smith. Firstly, we analyze the interaction between economic development and civil...

Traditional measures of poverty and social exclusion are appropriate only to study the situation of single-member households. Once couples and other household configurations are considered these measures fail to capture real-life individual poverty risks given that they are based on the very...

This paper shows an exploratory study on the use of institutional or cultural proximities on growth model. The justification dealing with spillovers problems in growth models with such connection matrices is detailed. The empirical study answers two questions. First, do institutional and...

The labour market situation of low-educated people is particularly critical in most advanced economies, especially among youngsters and women. Policies aiming to increase their employability either try to foster their productivity and/or to decrease their wage cost. Yet, the evidence on the...

Ce papier propose une étude économétrique sur le phénomène croissant d’oppositions de brevets. Plus spécifiquement, l’étude s’intéresse à l’impact de différents déterminants susceptibles d’influencer l’incidence d’oppositions de brevets déposés par des résidents...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pattern of knowledge flows as indicated by patent citations. In order to compute the technological proximity, we have followed the methodology developed by Jaffe (1986), where a technological vector is based on the distribution of patents of each...

In this paper, we study the impact of the presence of young children on parents' labour market participation and employment patterns and their implication in terms of working hours and employment continuity in 24 European countries. The results show that motherhood has an important and negative...

In Belgium, 2007 has been marked by long coalition negotiations over an agreement on a new government. The main bone of contention had been related to the reform of the Belgian Federal State. Among the suggested reforms, the regionalisation of the collective bargaining system turned out...

Drawing on Amartya Sen the paper aims at a better understanding of the motivational foundation of the economic agent by analysing Adam Smith’s insights into the foolishness of human ambitions. It inquires whether there is another side to the pursuit of self-interest in Adam Smith and...

The main objective of this paper is to present new empirical elements to the debate on sources of wage differentials. We investigate issues specifically related to the role of employer’s characteristics in the wage setting process. Findings show that combined industry effects explain almost no...