For more than half a century, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been viewed as the dominant indicator of economic and social progress. Its visibility and increasingly widespread use have contributed to the incorrect identification of economic growth (that is, increased GDP) with improved...

The socioeconomic development of most European countries has been largely shaped by social dialogue, by negotiations between employers and workers representatives. To that respect, Belgium has played a pivotal role. The Belgian post-WW2 institutions, aimed at fostering social dialogue, are often...

After sixty years of predominance in the western countries, both the objective of economic growth and its core measure, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), have been questioned. It no longer seems consistent to maintain growth as a societal goal and to keep GDP as the major reference for...

La notion d’État social actif sous-tend les réorientations récentes de la politique sociale belge et européenne. Elle est fille de la crise de l’État providence et du défi de la globalisation financière. Quelle crise ? Quel défi ? Quel enjeu ?

Malgré une croissance économique continue, des enquêtes révèlent que la “satisfaction de vie” des Occidentaux stagne. Pourquoi le bien-être ne progresse-t-il pas - ou plus - avec les revenus ? Qu'en disent les économistes ?

Le PIB est au coeur d'une tourmente. son statut de cible et de repère pour la conduite et l'évaluation des politiques économiques est remis en question. De nouveaux indicateurs tentent de pallier ses lacunes au regard d'objectifs de qualité de vie, de réduction des inégalités, de...

We present a simple mathematical model for the transition to a sustainable economy in order to explore the long-run evolution of an economy that achieves environment protection, full recycling of material resources and limitation of greenhouse gas emissions. The main concern is to investigate...

Professor L.H. Dupriez (1901-1986), founder of the Economic and Social Research Institute (IRES) and of the Department of Economics at the Catholic University of Louvain, was a leading figure in both the theory and the application of economics in Belgium during the 20th century. His personal...

Toward the end of his academic career Professor L.H. Dupriez, whose memory this volume honors, became increasingly concerned about the way in which the discipline of economics was developing. He rejected a definition of the subject too constrained by methodological strictures and encouraged his...

The rise of modern corporations has been accompanied by an expansion of salaried executives who have replaced owner-managers. With this expansion, the new class of managers/executives came to regard themselves as stewards of large and complex corporations, and not principally or exclusively as...