The Nobel Tradition at Berkeley
Gérard Debreu
Economics, 1983
By Russell Schoch
1984
Gérard Debreu was born in Calais, France, on July 4, 1921. He is the second
Berkeley faculty member to receive the Nobel Prize in a field other than
physics and chemistry and the first ever in the field of economics. Educated
at the Ecole Normale Superieure, he received his doctorate in economics from
the University of Paris in 1946.
Debreu moved permanently to
the United States in 1950 and, soon after, collaborated with Kenneth Arrow
(who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1972) in his initial mathematical studies
of the General Study of Equilibrium. Debreu's classic book, The Theory of
Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium, was published in
1959, when the author was still in his 30s.
Although barely 100
pages long, The Theory of Value demonstrated that, given a rigid set of
assumptions about producers and consumers, supply and demand do reach
equilibrium in a free-market, decentralized economy. The notion of such an
equilibrium was not new (Adam Smith, the Scottish economist, described this
phenomenon as "the invisible hand" governing economic behavior, in
1776), but Debreu was the first to develop a mathematical foundation for such
classical thinking. He also refined the methods of analyzing the conditions
that affect equilibrium and provided a framework for examining the ways that
different conditions affect the ability of the "invisible hand" to
allocate resources efficiently. In addition, Debreu has worked on the
mathematical basis for representing consumer behavior in economic models, many
of which are used extensively by economists in forecasting.
Although
Debreu's heavily mathematical approach was considered avant-garde in the 1950s
(he was considered an "extremist" in his approach), his research is
now in the mainstream, providing a theoretical framework for hundreds of
younger economists. His writings are cited by scholars more often than those
of any other theoretical economist.
After a 1960-61 fellowship
at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and a
brief stint at Yale, Debreu was named a professor at Berkeley in 1962, and he
has remained here ever since. In 1975 he became a United States citizen; that
same year, he accepted a dual appointment with the departments of mathematics
and economics.
In 1983, this "mathematical economist's
mathematical economist," as he has been called, received the Nobel Prize
in Economics in recognition of his three decades of important work. In
recommending Debreu for the prize, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences said
that his theoretical contributions lent themselves to "far-reaching
interpretations and applications." Debreu's most striking qualities,
according to his colleague Kenneth Arrow, are "the quickness of his mind
and the elegance of his thought."
At his press conference
the day he received word of the Nobel Prize, Gérard Debreu had this to say:
"What is uppermost on my mind at the present time is the concern that the
magnificent research environment I have known at this University during the
past 20 years will be preserved. It is threatened by very lean budgets. The
research establishment cannot go on with its momentum without some vital
ingredient --- namely, funds."
----------
Schoch, Russell. "Gérard Debreu:
Economics, 1983." The Nobel Tradition in Berkeley:
University of California, Berkeley. UC Berkeley
Development Office: UC Press,
1984, p. 30.
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