Conference honoring Gérard Roland’s career

January 29 2025

We are very pleased to announce that ECARES will hold a special one-day conference to honor
Gérard Roland on April the 3rd, 2025, at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).
Confirmed speakers at this stage are Philippe Aghion, Patrick Bolton, Sergei Guriev, Eric
Maskin, Torsten Persson, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Richard Portes, André Sapir, Monika Schnitzer,
Guido Tabellini, Guntram Wolff, Chenggang Xu, Jeromin Zettelmeyer, and Katia
Zhuravskaya.

As you know, Gérard has made outstanding contributions to multiple fields, and this event is an
opportunity to celebrate his 70th birthday and his work, and to reflect on its impact over the
years.
It is also an opportunity for us to welcome him back to ULB: Gérard studied economics at ULB,
from his Bachelor degree to his PhD, and was a Professor here until continuing his very successful
career at UC Berkeley, from which he will retire this year. We are very fortunate that he and his
wife have decided to return to Brussels.
It is striking how ‘topical’ Gérard’s return in 2025 is: he was a key member of the team that
founded ECARES (then ECARE) in 1991, thanks to the help of our Institute for European Studies
and of CEPR. ECARES started with a conference focused on topics very close to Gérard’s work at
the time: the transition from central planning to a market economy in the wake of the fall of the
Berlin Wall, and its consequences for the European Union. While we can clearly not be happy with
the current state of world affairs, we can say that Gérard’s insights remain remarkably relevant
today !
On April the 3rd, we are thus gathering a group of academics, friends, and colleagues to share
ideas on topics where Gérard has produced influential research, with a special focus on the
above topics as they have evolved in the new ‘geo-politico-economic’ environment. The focus will
be both on Europe and its institutions, and also on the global institutional architecture.
We are very much looking forward to welcoming you on this occasion !


Micael Castanheira and Mathias Dewatripont
ECARES, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, ULB

Latest News

Estelle Cantillon Organizes Belgian Environmental Economics Day (BEED 2025)

12 February 2025

ECARES member Estelle Cantillon organized the Belgian Environmental Economics Day (BEED 2025), a key event for environmental economists in Belgium. The day brought together experts , and researchers to discuss pressing environmental issues through an economic lens. The event featured a series of presentations and discussions on various topics within environmental economics, providing a platform …

See more details

ECARES Welcomes Nobel Prize Laureate Jean Tirole for a Seminar

12 February 2025

On February 6th, ECARES (Economics and Computing Research School) had the honor of welcoming Jean Tirole, the Nobel Prize-winning economist of 2014, for a prestigious seminar. Tirole, renowned for his groundbreaking work in industrial organization and market regulation, shared his insights on contemporary economic challenges. His presentation focused on his recent paper titled Engineering Commonality, …

See more details

Short Course on Functional Data Analysis – February 18-19, 2025

31 January 2025

Short Course on Functional Data Analysis – February 18-19, 2025Join us for a two-day short course on Functional Data Analysis, featuring a seminar by Jan Almond Stöcker from EPFL. Seminar – February 17, 2025 Speaker: Jan Almond Stöcker, EPFLTitle: Functional Additive Models for Forms of Plane Curves and Their VisualizationTime: 14:00 – 16:00 Abstract:In many …

See more details
See more news