The Leo Apostel Center in collaboration with the Doctoral Programme of 
the VUB invites everyone to the 26th of its interdisciplinary seminars in 
the Foundations series. In this series CLEA invites scholars that are 
actively engaged in the research on the foundations of a particular 
discipline. Their lectures will always be directed to an 
interdisciplinary audience, and the discussions aim at confronting the 
foundations of the different disciplines.



      F O U N D A T I O N S   O F   P O L I T I C A L   A N D
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                S O C I A L   E C O N O M I C S
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                by Prof. Dr. Robert Scott Gassler

        (Professor of Economics, Vesalius College of the VUB)



Tuesday, 9 December 1997 at 6 p.m. in room L 210 (building L, 2nd floor)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Campus Oefenplein 


About the lecture 

In the past twenty-five or thirty years interest has grown again among 
economists and others in the application of economic analysis to topics 
heretofore considered beyond those borders the scope of positive 
economics. One name for the results of this application is "political and 
social economics". Professor Gassler will describe several examples of 
how economic theory can be used to explain such phenomena by altering 
certain of its crucial assumptions. Examples will include altruism toward 
others and toward society; complexity, positive feedback, and increasing 
returns; and feminist economics.

About the speaker

Professor Robert Scott Gassler holds an AB in economics from Oberlin 
College, an MS in library service from Columbia University, an MA in 
economics from the University of Washington in Seattle, and received his 
doctorate in economics at the University of Colorado under the economist, 
systems scientist, and social thinker Kenneth Boulding. After teaching 
for over a decade in liberal-arts colleges and universities in the US, he 
came to Brussels with his family in 1990, where he is a full-time 
Professor(Hoogleraar) of Economics at Vesalius College of the Vrije 
Universiteit Brussel. Until recently he also taught in the VUB Department 
of Human Ecology. His research specialties include comparative economic 
systems, the economics of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, 
and political and social economics. He is the author of several dozen 
scholarly books, papers, and reviews, in economics, library science, and 
systems science.

The presentations with questions will last about an hour. Afterwards, an 
hour or more is reserved for an in-depth, group discussion of the topic. 
More info at the CLEA office: phone 02-644 26 77 or via the Web-page: 
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CLEA/