I am active Emeritus Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Namur. I am also an associate member of THRED (Theoretical Research in Development Economics), ERINN (Economics Research on Identity, Norms, and Narratives), EUDN (European Development Network), the Stone Center for Research on Wealth, Inequality and Mobility (University of Chicago), and CEPR.
I work on question of development and institutional economics, with a special interest for questions lying at the border between economics and social sciences. My most recent works deal with issues centred around the interactions between formal and informal institutions, the political economy of autocracies and religious instrumentalization, the impact of political dynasties on local development, the effects of political and economic liberalization on poor countries, aid effectiveness and governance in fragile countries, the role of women in religious conversion to new Christian churches, and the contribution of literature to economics.
My academic career has been marked out by a more or less regular flow of books that testify to the evolution of my research interests. In particular,
Les économistes classiques et le sous-développement (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2 Vols, 1978).
Technology, Credit and Indebtedness in Marine Fishing - A Case Study of Three Fishing Villages in South Kerala (Hindustan Publishing Co., Delhi, 1985).
Land Reform and Structural Adjustment in SubSaharan Africa: Controversies and Guidelines, (FAO, Rome, 1992).
Halting Degradation of Natural Resources – Is There a Role for Rural Communities? (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), co-authored with J.M. Baland.
Institutions, Social Norms, and Economic Development (Routledge, London, 2000).
Access to Land, Rural Poverty, and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), co-edited with . A. de Janvry, E. Sadoulet, and G. Gordillo.
Culture and Development: New Insights into an Old Debate (Routledge, London, 2010).
Islam Instrumentalized: Religion and Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
The Handbook of Economic Development and Institutions (North Holland and Elsevier, 2017), co-edited with JM Baland, F. Bourguignon, and T. Verdier.
Towards Gender Equity and Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), co-edited with S. Anderson and L. Beaman.
Institutional Challenges at the Early Stages of Development : Lessons from a Multi-Country Study (Cambridge University Press, 2024), co-authored with F. Bourguignon.
Economics and Literature: A Novel Approach (Routledge, 2025), co-edited with A. Dixit, F. Bourguignon, and L. Leruth.