Honory doctorates 2002

Prof. dr. A.P. (Anton) Barten

Honorary supervisor Prof. Dr. Arie Kapteyn - 1992 – Faculteit Economische Wetenschappen

Anton Barten (Amsterdam, 1930–Leuven, Belgium, 2016) studied economics at the Gemeentelijke Universiteit in Amsterdam. After his studies, he worked at the Econometric Institute of the then Nederlandse Economische Hogeschool (now Erasmus University Rotterdam), together with econometricians from the very beginning, such as Nobel Prize winner Jan Tinbergen.

Prof.dr. Anton Barten

After a period at the CPB, Barten became the first CORE Director at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1966, a research institute where his research focused on assessing the conditions for rationality in complete demand systems. This resulted in a whole series of influential publications in top-level international journals such as Econometrica and the Review of Economic Studies. His most cited paper is the first article in the very first volume of the European Economic Review. He also showed special interest in the construction of macro-econometric models, for which he could rely on his experience at the CPB.

In a 2017 obituary, Professor Arthur van Soest writes about Barten's role at the then Catholic University of Brabant that, in 1988, Tilburg University "succeeded in convincing Anton Barten to return temporarily to the Netherlands. In order to bring the practice of economic science in the Netherlands up to an international level, the research institute CentER (Center for Economic Research) was founded at the end of the 1980s, in a sense following the example of the Belgian CORE. Anton Barten was the first research director of this institute from 1988 to 1990 [...] which was rapidly expanded into a leading international research institute in the field of economics and econometrics."

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