Introduction: Focus on Jean Paelinck

Abstract

The following baker’s dozen of papers—constituting a unique document written by enthusiastic researchers and furnishing concrete evidence that Jean Paelinck is a very well appreciated friend of the scientific world—have been compiled as a lasting testimonial to the outstanding research, mentoring, teaching and service contributions of Jean Paelinck to science and society. Through his distinguished career and principal research accomplishments, Jean has established a legacy that should furnish a research endowment upon which regional science can draw for many years to come. Adapting a quote by Stephen Hawking, “Equations are just the boring part of [econometrics]. [Jean] attempt[s] to see things in terms of [space].” In writing to us, Professor Mignolet, who as a student first met Jean in 1975, provided an anecdote that exemplifies this very point:

No sooner was I sitting in his office than he threw a string of equations on the blackboard.... His proposed solution method [was based on] the consider[ation] that a policy had not been implemented.