The diploma thesis deals with the analyses of demand using standard tools of engineering mathematics. Mathematical models of demand, both single and multi- factor are investigated. Elasticity of demand is applied for decision making in price policy. Problems of optimization of demand reflecting utility and budget constraints are under consideration. Constructions of demand curve and compensated demand curve are presented. The text is accompanied by illustrative examples aiming at methodical aspects of the work

En cas de séparation, la loi belge ne prévoit pas de méthode obligatoire de calcul de la contribution alimentaire pour les enfants. Cette dernière est fixée généralement arbitrairement. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’élaborer une méthode de calcul de la contribution alimentaire dans le contexte belge, une méthode qui se base sur le coût de l’enfant.L’objectif de la première partie de la thèse est d’étudier la notion de « contribution alimentaire » d’un point de vue théorique. L’accent est mis sur plusieurs éléments :le lien existant entre « obligation alimentaire » et « contribution alimentaire », l’environnement légal belge en matière de fixation de la contribution alimentaire, les principes de base de la méthode à élaborer…La deuxième partie de la thèse s’intéresse à l’estimation du coût de l’enfant, étape nécessaire dans le calcul de la contribution alimentaire. Dans cet exercice, nous nous sommes basés sur l’enquête budget des ménages de 2016. Deux types de coût sont estimés :le coût global et les coûts spécifiques. Afin de calculer le coût global, nous avons estimé une équation de demande en se basant sur un modèle linéaire (MCO pour la méthode d’Engel et Tobit pour la méthode de Rothbarth). Les résultats de l’estimation du coût de l’enfant montrent que le coût moyen de l’enfant diminue entre ]0-2,5 ans] et]2,5-6 ans] et augmente à partir de 6 ans jusqu’à 25 ans. Afin d’estimer les coûts spécifiques de l’enfant, en d’autres termes « combien coûte l’enfant en alimentation, habillement… », nous avons estimé un système d’équations basé sur un modèle Tobit. En Belgique, la seule méthode prévoyant un calcul explicite du coût de l’enfant a été développée par Roland Renard dans les années quatre-vingt. L’originalité de cette partie consiste donc à fournir une estimation récente du coût de l’enfant dans le contexte belge. L’estimation du coût de l’enfant nous mène à la troisième partie de la thèse qui consiste en l’élaboration de la méthode de calcul de la contribution alimentaire. Au niveau international, l’étude des méthodes existantes en matière de calcul de la contribution alimentaire montre une absence de consensus concernant la liste des critères à prendre en compte. Au niveau belge, les méthodes existantes se basent soit sur les coefficients de la méthode Renard soit sur des moyennes statistiques. L’objectif de cette partie réside dans l’élaboration d’une méthode de calcul de la contribution alimentaire, méthode s’inspirant des méthodes internationales et prenant en compte les critiques adressées aux méthodes nationales. L’originalité de la méthode élaborée se rattache à plusieurs éléments. Premièrement, la méthode se base sur des principes biens définis (objectifs et critères à prendre en compte). Le montant de la contribution alimentaire n’est pas déterminé arbitrairement mais en se basant sur des étapes bien précises. Deuxièmement, la méthode rencontre les différents problèmes qui se posent en matière de calcul de la contribution alimentaire et sur lesquels on n’a pas réellement réfléchi jusqu’à présent. C’est le cas par exemple de la problématique des frais extraordinaires. Le troisième avantage de la méthode réside dans le fait qu’elle est facilement compréhensible par les parents. Ceci est d’une importance majeure. En effet, « une décision mieux comprise est mieux acceptée et donc mieux exécutée ». Le quatrième avantage réside dans sa souplesse, en d’autres termes sa capacité à être applicable à toutes les situations familiales et à toutes les situations d’hébergement. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In March 2018 the European Commission published the Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth. One of the main objectives with the actions presented in the action plan is to reorient capital flows towards sustainable investments, i.e. to influence more investors to invest sustainably. The action plan was followed by three proposals for transparency regulation regarding an EU taxonomy on sustainability, sustainability benchmarks and sustainability disclosures. Furthermore, the action plan included actions regarding two other transparency measures – sustainability labels and sustainability ratings. The first purpose of the thesis is to investigate if transparency regulation in the EU can be used as a tool to influence investors to choose sustainable investment funds. One of the main aims of the actions presented in the Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, as well as the accompanying regulation proposals, is to reorient capital flows towards sustainable investments, i.e. to influence more investors to invest sustainably. In light of this, the Commission’s three proposed transparency regulations, as well as the concept of sustainability labels and ratings, are used as a basis for the investigation. The second purpose of the thesis is therefore to critically review the three regulation proposals and the concept of sustainability labels and ratings in order to gain an understanding of how different transparency measures can influence investors to choose sustainable investment funds. The transparency regulations and measures are analysed and critically reviewed in light of their objective to influence more investors to invest sustainably. A behavioural economics perspective, as well as consumer behaviour theories and decision-making models, are applied in order to analyse the transparency regulations and measures from an external perspective. Based on the analysis there are many indicators that transparency regulation can be used as a tool to influence investors to choose sustainable investment funds. However, to what extent transparency regulation can influence investor behaviour varies depending on which transparency measures are used and how they are designed. Sustainability benchmarks seem to have the least potential to influence investor behaviour, while the EU taxonomy on sustainability and sustainability labels seem to have the best potential to influence investor behaviour.

This study has collected and analysed a database of place-names containing potential ethnonymic elements. Competing models of ethnicity are investigated and applied to names about which there is reasonable confidence. A number of motivations for employment of ethnonyms in place-names emerge. Ongoing interaction between ethnicities is marked by reference to domain or borderland, and occasional interaction by reference to resource or transit. More superficial interaction is expressed in names of commemorative, antiquarian or figurative motivation. The implications of the names for our understanding of the history of individual ethnicities are considered. Distribution of Walh-names has been extended north into Scotland; but reference may be to Romance-speaking feudal incomers, not the British. Briton-names are confirmed in Cumberland and are found on and beyond the fringes of the polity of Strathclyde. Dumbarton, however, is an antiquarian coining. Distribution of Cumbrian-names suggests that the south side of the Solway Firth was not securely under Cumbrian influence; but also that the ethnicity, expanding in the tenth century, was found from the Ayrshire coast to East Lothian, with the Saxon culture under pressure in the Southern Uplands. An ethnonym borrowed from British in the name Cumberland and the Lothian outlier of Cummercolstoun had either entered northern English dialect or was being employed by the Cumbrians themselves to coin these names in Old English. If the latter, such self-referential pronouncement in a language contact situation was from a position of status, in contrast to the ethnicism of the Gaels. Growing Gaelic self-awareness is manifested in early-modern domain demarcation and self-referential naming of routes across the cultural boundary. But by the nineteenth century cultural change came from within, with the impact felt most acutely in west-mainland and Hebridean Argyll, according to the toponymic evidence. Earlier interfaces between Gaelic and Scots are indicated on the east of the Firth of Clyde by the early fourteenth century, under the Sidlaws and in Buchan by the fifteenth, in Caithness and in Perthshire by the sixteenth. Earlier, Norse-speakers may have referred to Gaels in the hills of Kintyre. The border between Scotland and England was toponymically marked, but not until the modern era. In Carrick, Argyll and north and west of the Great Glen, Albanians were to be contrasted, not necessarily linguistically, from neighbouring Gaelic-speakers; Alba is probably to be equated with the ancient territory of Scotia. Early Scot-names, recorded from the twelfth century, similarly reflect expanding Scotian influence in Cumberland and Lothian. However, late instances refer to Gaelic-speakers. Most Eireannach-names refer to wedder goats rather than the ethnonym, but residual Gaelic-speakers in east Dumfriesshire are indicated by Erisch­-names at the end of the fifteenth century or later. Others west into Galloway suggest an earlier Irish immigration, probably as a consequence of normanisation and of engagement in Irish Sea politics. Other immigrants include French estate administrators, Flemish wool producers and English feudal subjects. The latter have long been discussed, but the relationship of the north-eastern Ingliston-names to mottes is rejected, and that of the south-western Ingleston-names is rather to former motte-hills with degraded fortifications. Most Dane-names are also antiquarian, attracted less by folk memory than by modern folklore. The Goill could also be summoned out of the past to explain defensive remains in particular. Antiquarianism in the eighteenth century onwards similarly ascribed many remains to the Picts and the Cruithnians, though in Shetland a long-standing supernatural association with the Picts may have been maintained. Ethnicities were invoked to personify past cultures, but ethnonyms also commemorate actual events, typified by Sasannach-names. These tend to recall dramatic, generally fatal, incidents, usually involving soldiers or sailors. Any figures of secular authority or hostile activity from outwith the community came to be considered Goill, but also agents of ecclesiastical authority or economic activity and passing travellers by land or sea. The label Goill, ostensibly providing 178 of the 652 probable ethnonymic database entries, is in most names no indication of ethnicity, culture or language. It had a medieval geographical reference, however, to Hebrideans, and did develop renewed, early-modern specificity in response to a vague concept of Scottish society outwith the Gaelic cultural domain. The study concludes by considering the forms of interaction between ethnicities and looking at the names as a set. It proposes classification of those recalled in the names as overlord, interloper or native.