A new institutional reform is one of the major stakes for the Belgian citizens and enterprises ahead of the regional election of June 2009. Since the general federal election of June 2007 Belgium has been facing new tensions between the two main Communities. On one side, the Flemish Community...

Microfinance is often assumed to be an ethically progressive industry, but in recent years it has been the target of much ethical criticism. Microfinance institutions have been accused of using exploitative lending techniques and charging usurious interest rates; and critics even question the...

More than ever, the current crisis has highlighted the cost of banking crises in budgetary and economic growth terms. Whether or not to restructure a bank is a key determinant of who bears the costs. The present article surveys the main issues concerning banks' restructuring, by considering the...

A huge tension exists between recognizing sustainable development (SD) as a meta-discourse and accepting a limitless interpretational width. We analyse the impacts of diversity of worldviews on the interpretation of SD-as a knowledge-based concept-through a critical literature review, resulting...

Modifications of soil physical parameters (bulk density, pore space pattern and clay dispersibility) induced by compaction in wheel-rutted areas due to mechanized forest exploitation was studied in loamy soils developed under beech stands in the loessic belt of middle Belgium. The consequences...

This article investigates the mechanisms by which the cities of the United States smooth out fluctuations in their income. Contributions for social security and government transfers (the government channel) take the bulk of smoothing (17 per cent), and intercity mobility ranks high: about 6 per...

Evolutionary accounts in economics have offered a new look at economic development. Advancing on the limited cognitive capacities, they have shown that structural change follows technological, institutional and ideological paths. The present examination suggests an add-on to this cognitive...

Advocates of antidumping (AD) laws downplay their negative effects by arguing that the trade flows that are subject to AD are small and their distortions negligible. But while the adverse effect of AD on product-level trade has long been established, the question remains whether there are trade...