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Jerard DebreuFrench economist and mathematician, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, Nobel Prize laureate.
Date of Birth: 04.07.1921
Country:  France |
Content:
Biography of Gerard Debre
Early Life and EducationGerard Debre was a French economist and mathematician, and a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was born in a relatively young age, as his father committed suicide and his mother died of natural causes. Even before the start of World War II, Gerard managed to obtain a bachelor's degree and began actively preparing for further education. He started his preparation in Ambert and later moved to Grenoble, both cities were considered "free zones" during the war. In 1941, Debre enrolled in the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. However, the war had an impact on his studies, as he joined the French army just before the final exams. After completing his training in Algeria, Gerard was transferred to the French occupation forces in Germany, where he served until July 1945. By the beginning of 1946, Debre successfully passed the necessary exams, but he developed a new interest in economics and the general theory of equilibrium.
Career and Achievements
From 1946 to 1948, Debre worked as an assistant at the National Center for Scientific Research. During these two and a half years, he decided to switch from mathematics to economics. In 1948, Debre traveled to the United States on a special scholarship, which allowed him to study at several local universities. In 1950, Gerard married Francoise Bled, and they later had two daughters. In 1954, he published a groundbreaking paper on equilibrium in competing systems, co-authored with Kenneth Arrow. In 1959, Debre published his classic monograph "Theory of Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium," which remains one of the most important works in the field of mathematical economics. He dedicated considerable effort to studying the problems of cardinal utility theory. In his monograph, Debre laid the axiomatic foundations of the concept of competing markets and proved the existence of market equilibrium using a rather unconventional approach.
Later Years and Legacy
From 1960 to 1961, Debre worked at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, where he developed a general proof for what became known as the general theory of economic equilibrium by 1962. In January 1962, Gerard began working at the University of California, Berkeley, where he held a professorship, teaching students the secrets of mathematical economics. He occasionally visited other educational institutions, including Bonn, Cambridge, Leiden, and Paris. In the following years, Debre made several important discoveries, including showing that excess demand functions converge to zero at a finite number of points. This automatically implied that economic systems could have a limited number of equilibrium positions. In 1976, he received the Order of the Legion of Honor, and in 1983, Debre was awarded the Nobel Prize for his new analytical methods in economic theory and his legendary reinterpretation of the theory of equilibrium. Gerard Debre also became a member of the International Academy of Sciences. He passed away in Paris on the eve of the new year in 2004, at the age of 83.
