DEBRA Gerard (Debreu, Gerard)

Genus. July 4, 1921, Mr..


Memory of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 1983.


Franco-American economist Gerard Debreu was born in Calais, his parents were Kamil and Fernande (nee Desharn) Debre. Both his grandfather and father were the owners of small enterprises for the production of lace, located in the same territories.

D. in college in the town of Calais, and received a bachelor's degree in 1939. Going to study mathematics in Paris, . but instead because of the outbreak of the Second World War, he attended two improvised preparatory schools, . one in Ambere, . another in Grenoble, . located in the Free Zone, . established after the German occupation of France,
. Summer 1941. he entered the Ecole normal syuperer in Paris where he falls into the 'extremely tense intellectual atmosphere' fueled 'gloomy appearance of Paris under German occupation'. He remained there until the liberation of Paris in 1944, then entered the service in the French army, trained in officer school in Algeria and is in Germany in the French army until the summer of 1945,.

Upon returning to normal Ecole syuperer it in 1946. there is a competition and get qualified teacher of Mathematics. As his interest in the economy deepens, he arranged a junior officer in economics from the National Center for Scientific Research. In the summer of 1948. He taught in Austria, the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, led by the economist Wassily Leontief. Next year and a half it as the Rockefeller Foundation visiting fellow economics departments of some leading universities in the USA and Scandinavia.

Autumn 1949. D. was appointed an assistant researcher at the Commission Coles of Economic Research, who was then at the University of Chicago. He remained in the Commission for 11 years, except for six months of work in the Service of electricity in Paris, France. In 1956, Mr.. University of Paris awarded him a doctorate. In 1962. He arrives at the University of California at Berkeley as a professor of economics, and in 1975. also appointed professor of mathematics.

Job D. connected with the main subject of controversy in economics - the theory of general equilibrium, the subject whose foundations laid in the works of Adam Smith, Scottish economist, lived in XVIII. The interdependence of the market economy and related laws of supply and demand subsequently became the main subject of research of Leon Walras, French mathematician, who is credited with creating in 1840, Mr.. theory of general equilibrium.

New D. faced with the problem of general equilibrium in the Ecole normal syuperer in the works of Maurice Allais, who in 1943. re-formulated this theory in his book 'In search of economic discipline' ( "A la recherche d'une discipline economique"). In 1952, working in the Commission Coles, D. published his first article on this topic. Two years later he teamed up with Kenneth Arrow in favor of now-classic article, . called the 'Existence of equilibrium for a competitive economy' ( "Existence of an Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy"), . in which they prove the existence of non-negative equilibrium price under conditions, . not appear to be relatively restrictive effects,
. In his book 'The theory of value: An axiomatic analysis of economic equilibrium' ( "The Theory of Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium", 1959) D. distributes its 'proof of existence of' equilibrium in more general cases, considering the many solutions in which equilibrium is possible.

'The theory of value', which contains the D made. mathematical analysis of general equilibrium, a classic work of the XX century. on economic theory, the apex of the tradition, going back to Adam Smith. This book, which offer unbeatable elegance of presentation and mathematical rigor, as well as many other works D. show how great his contribution to various fields of economy, such as the theory of welfare, utility theory, the derivatives of the demand. D. used mathematical tools to study such 'practical' issues, such as the reduction of welfare as a result of tax policy. In addition, he considered the problem of economic uncertainty, including the problem of future product markets, and also investigated the conditions under which prices in the system tend to their equilibrium-values.

Many scientists found it difficult to comprehend vysokoabstraktnoe thinking and mathematical language scholar. His assumptions about how markets operate and the people can seem detached from life, and its results - not applicable to the economic reality. Nevertheless, it is pure theory is needed to serve as the basis for the analysis of economic reality. Going through this difficult, D. and his followers have made an enormous contribution to the progress of economic science.

D. was awarded the Nobel Memorial Award for 1983. Economics 'for his contribution to our understanding of the theory of general equilibrium and the conditions under which general equilibrium exists in some abstract economy'. According to Karl Goran Mehler, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in his works on the theory of general equilibrium D. 'not only tells us about the mechanism of prices, but also introduces new analytical methods, new tools in the arsenal of economists'. Moreover, continued Mehler, 'penetrating analysis of models of abstract economies', conducted by D., economists gave the general theory that can be applied to a variety of situations.

In 1945, Mr.. D. married Franцїoise Bled, they have two daughters. In 1975. He became a U.S. citizen. Unlike many of his colleagues Dr.. continually declined offers to work in industry or government. He leads a quiet life in Berkeley. Gifted students and economists from around the world are drawn there for him, to work together, and his popular lectures are distinguished by their mathematical rigor and the absence of verbal explanations.

D. is in 1976. Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. He was a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow at the Center for operations research and econometrics at Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium, 1968 - 1969); Fund Erskine Fellow of Canterbury University, Christchurch. New Zealand (summer 1969); Foreign Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge (Spring 1972). He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American National Academy of Sciences. American Economic Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was awarded honorary degrees of Bonn, Lausanne, Northwestern University and Toulouse University of Social Sciences.