He holds a BA (1981) and MA (1982) in economics from ULB and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University (1986). His general research area is the theory of incentives and organizations. Since 1990, he has been Professor of Economics at ULB (part-time between 2011 and 2017). Between 1998 and 2011, he was part-time (7 weeks a year) Visiting Professor at MIT and Research Director of CEPR. Fellow of the Econometric Society, laureate of the 1998 Francqui Prize and of the 2003 Yrjo Jahnsson Prize for Economics, he was President of the EEA in 2005. He was member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council between 2005 and 2012. He was Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Studies (1990-94) and one of the three Programme co-chairs of the 2000 World Congress of the Econometric Society. He is member of the Académie Royale De Belgique and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science. He was co-Director of ECARES (1991-2002) and, upon the creation of the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, he was its Vice-President (2008-2009), President (2009-2010) and then Dean (2010-2011). He was outside Director of CGER-Bank (1992-99), and he was Executive Director of the National Bank of Belgium between May 2011 and May 2017 (and its Vice-Governor between June 2014 and March 2015), being its representative on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (2011-2017) and on the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank (2014-2017).

“Advocates”, (with J. Tirole), Journal of Political Economy, 1999.

“The Economics of Career Concerns, Part I & Part II, (with I. Jewitt & J. Tirole), Review of Economic Studies, 1999.

“Moral Hazard and Capital Structure Dynamics”, (with P. Legros & S. Matthews), Journal of the European Economic Association, 2003.

“Transferable Control”, (with P. Aghion & P. Rey), Journal of the European Economic Association, 2004.

Contract Theory, (with P. Bolton), MIT Press, 2005.

“Modes of Communication”, (with J. Tirole), Journal of Political Economy, 2005.

“Academic Freedom, Private-Sector Focus and the Process of Innovation”, (with P. Aghion & J. Stein), Rand Journal of Economics, 2008.

Balancing the Banks: Global Lessons from the Financial Crisis, (with J. Tirole & J.C. Rochet), Princeton University Press, 2010.

“The Governance and Performance of Research Universities: Evidence from Europe and the U.S”, (with P. Aghion, C. Hoxby, A. Mas-Colell and A. Sapir), Economic Policy, 2010.

“Macroeconomic Shocks and Banking Regulation”, (with J. Tirole), Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 2012.

“Industrial Policy and Competition”, (with P. Aghion, J. Cai, L. Du, A. Harrison & P. Legros), American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2015.

“Of Mice and Academics: Examining the Effect of Openness on Innovation”, (with F. Murray, P. Aghion, J. Kolev, F. Murray & S. Stern), American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2016.

“Free Drug Samples and the Opioid Crisis,” (with M. Goldman), New England Journal of Medicine, 2018, 379, pp. 793-794 (correspondence).

Université libre de Bruxelles (Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, ECARES and I3h)