DIMITRIOS ASTERIOU is Associate Professor in Economics at the Hellenic Open University, School of Social Sciences in Greece. He is also the Secretary general of the European Economics and Finance Society STEPHEN G. HALL is Professor of Economics at Leicester University, UK and Visiting Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Member of the Executive Committee of the UN project LINK and Editor of 'Economic Modelling'.