Marcel CLAESSEN was born in Amsterdam in 1952. He finished his secondary education with the Staatsexamen HBS-B, obtained his undergraduate education at the Landbouw Hogeschool Wageningen, and then graduated from the Interuniversitaire Interfaculteit Bedrijfskunde Delft in 1978 with a thesis on Two hedging models of stock options.

After contributing for some years to Dutch anti-trust policy, he pursued parallel careers as a househusband, a computer consultant, and a student of the history of economic thought.

In the latter realm, his present occupations are the preparation of the Internet edition [http://www.condorcet.nl] of the 1802 Dutch translation of Condorcet's Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, and the annotated translation into Dutch of Turgot's Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses.