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By means of an in-depth analysis of 132 partnership agreements, which had been notarized in the city of Antwerp between 1480 and 1620, the present article aspires to provide a substantiated narrative on the use as well as legal features of private partnerships in the early modern Low Countries. In so doing, it became apparent that such small-scale partnerships constituted an effective means in the hands of, mostly non-related, merchants and craftsmen who were looking for legal certainty. Moreover, the examination of these partnership agreements demonstrated the wide-ranging contractual freedom that contracting parties in sixteenth-century Antwerp could dispose of and that therefore historical reality not necessarily complies with legal ideas and concepts provided for by legislative or statutory documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article derives a gravity equation for commuting and uses it to identify the effect of regional borders on commuting. We build on the seminal trade paper by Anderson and Van Wincoop (2003, Gravity with gravitas: a solution to the border puzzle. The American Economic Review, 93: 170-192) and highlight some interesting similarities between our model and Wilson's doubly constrained gravity equation [Wilson, A. (2010) Entropy in urban and regional modelling: retrospect and prospect. Geographical analysis, 42: 364-394], a workhorse model from spatial interaction theory. The model is estimated by applying a negative binomial regression method on Belgian inter-municipal commuting data. We show that regional borders exert a sizeable residual deterrent effect on commuting, a finding with obvious implications for regional labour market integration. This border effect differs significantly between regions and depends on the direction in which the border is crossed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Checklists for evaluation capacity builders include a wide range of building blocks for supporting evaluation activity. Yet, the relative importance of each building block is not clear. The purpose of this article is to identify the capacity related factors that are necessary , but not necessarily sufficient, for organisations that wish to institutionalise high quality policy evaluations. To retrieve these factors, we rely on the necessity function in qualitative comparative analysis. We present a study of twenty-seven organisations of the Flemish public sector (Belgium), in which the introduction of policy evaluations is relatively recent. Our case analysis thus sheds an interesting light upon how policy evaluation, and the underlying capacity to evaluate is given shape. Our findings point at evaluation demand as the most necessary prerequisite for fostering evaluation activity, more so than supply related factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of urban agriculture, particularly allotment gardens, from the nineteenth century onwards. The authors especially highlight the example of Belgium, but relate its history to wider European and international trends. Issues addressed include social and economic aspects of allotment gardening, for example as an opportunity for poor people, its use by the ruling classes to pacify the lower classes politically and avert revolution, and its function in creating a sense of urban community.

Temporal distribution of individual price changes is of crucial importance for business cycle theory and for the microfoundations of price adjustment. While it is routinely assumed that price changes are staggered over time, both theory and evidence are ambiguous. We use a large Belgian data set to analyze whether price changes are staggered or synchronized. We find that the more aggregated are the data, the closer is the distribution to perfect staggering. The results hold both for aggregation across products, and across locations. They are consistent with an economy in which idiosyncratic shocks are the main cause of price changes. (JEL E30, E31, D40 ) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the interplay between retail changes and transformations in the material culture of Antwerp, a provincial town in the southern Netherlands. We argue that major changes in the eighteenth-century material culture and retail sector were not significantly linked to preconditions of economic growth and urbanization. The Antwerp ‘retail paradox’ is that of a shrinking economic horizon running parallel to material culture and retail transformations, usually connected to expanding urban economies and societies. Changing retail and consumer practices explain the growing and prospering retail sector, rather than a growing economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply of information has increased rapidly through the growth of commercial media and technological innovations. Yet economists still blame anti-globalists’ demonstrations and public opposition to trade liberalisation on poor information. This paper analyses how the structure of the media industry affects the distribution of information on trade policy and globalisation. We present an empirical analysis of Belgian media reporting on trade policy and globalisation over the 1999–2002 period, supports these hypotheses and finds strong negative bias in media coverage. Moreover, we find that media coverage of trade policy and globalisation is highly concentrated around summit meetings of political leaders. Media attention in the popular press is heavily influenced by riots and demonstrations at summits. The paper points at important implications for public information on trade policy and globalisation and for economists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se presenta un trabajo con el objeto de tratar de establecer algunos principios generales acerca de los efectos de aviso de los cambios ocurridos en la tasa de descuento de un país sobre el valor en divisas de su moneda. Se analizaron experiencias registradas en el Reino Unido, Alemania, Japón, Canadá y Bélgica, de las que se deduce que los electos de aviso dependen en gran medida de la naturaleza del mecanismo de tasa de descuento, así como de la manera en que las autoridades monetarias lo aplican.

Presents information on the transformation of Belgium, with direct reference to the political management of cultural diversity. Challenges facing the transformation of Belgium; Details on a federal formula used to avert economic crises in Belgium; Circumstances surrounding the crisis of the Belgian state; Details on the deterioration in communal relations after the institution of linguistic boundaries in 1962.

Provides information on the economic activity in Belgium for 1997. Impact of private consumption on job creation; Projection for the gross domestic product in 1998 and 1999; Details on the government's budget deficit; Reference to high rates of unemployment; Decline of consumer price inflation to one percent in early 1998; Predications for interest rates in 1998. INSET: Fiscal policy assumptions underlying the projections.

Focuses on the economic conditions of Belgium. Examination of the decrease in economic expansion for the second half of 1996; Expectations for an increase in real gross domestic product growth; Possibility in the improvements in labour market conditions; Information on the high employment rates.

Analyzes on the economic development in Belgium in 1993. Slight decline in gross domestic product; Deceleration in consumer-price inflation; Slow wage growth; Reduction in interest rates; Tightening of fiscal policy; Targeted cut in budget deficit; Likely recovery by 1994 dependent on macroeconomic situation; Projected growth in fixed investment.

Presents information on economic development in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country, Belgium for 1995. Expectations for the gross domestic product (GDP).

Presents information on the economy of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country, Belgium. Expectations of gross domestic product (GDP); Projections for economic growth.

The article discusses the doctoral thesis "Course à l'innovation et mécanique des brevets: L'evolution technologique dans l'industrie du zinc 1806-1873" by Arnaud Peters, a student at the Université de Liège, focusing on technological developments in the zinc industry. Other topics include entrepreneurial development in 19th century Belgium, the patent system in Belgium, and the multinational enterprise S.A. des Mines et Fonderies de zinc de la Vieille-Montagne.