Gerard Debreu, 83, Dies; Won Nobel in Economics -- Rest in Peace

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Subject: Gerard Debreu, 83, Dies; Won Nobel in Economics

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Date Posted: January 07, 2005 1:37:36 EDT

Gerard Debreu, the winner of the 1983 Nobel in economic sciences for his research on the balance of supply and demand, died Friday in Paris.

Mr. Debreu, who was 83, died of natural causes, according to a statement released yesterday by the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for nearly 30 years. His residence was an assisted-living center in Paris, where he moved about a year ago after suffering a stroke, his son-in-law, Richard De Soto, said.

Mr. Debreu won the Nobel for his work on a mathematical approach to one of the most basic economic problems: how prices function to balance what producers supply with what buyers want.

A slender 100-page book he wrote that was published in 1959, "Theory of Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium," is considered a classic of the field.

"He brought to economics a mathematical rigor that had not been seen before," Prof. Robert Anderson said in the university's statement yesterday.

In contrast to other winners in economics, Mr. Debreu focused on basic research rather than applications of economic theory.

"You would not get much of an economic policy discussion out of him," Assar Lindbeck, chairman of the panel that reviewed nominations for the Nobel committee, said when he announced the award to Mr. Debreu 21 years ago. "He is the kind of teacher who starts in the top left corner of the blackboard, fills it with formulae and reaches the bottom right corner at the end of the class."

Mr. Debreu's work had an impact on the work of many other economists, said Kenneth Arrow, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford who collaborated with Mr. Debreu in the 1950's. Economists applied Mr. Debreu's theories to problems like analyzing business cycles and measuring the cost to the economy of inefficiencies like traffic congestion, Mr. Arrow said.

Mr. Debreu was born on July 4, 1921, in Calais, France; he became an American citizen in 1975. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris in 1956. He broke off his studies in mathematics in 1944 after D-Day, to enlist in the French Army. He was an officer of the French Legion of Honor and a commander of the French National Order of Merit.

From 1950 to 1960, Mr. Debreu was associated with the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics at the University of Chicago; he was later at Yale University, serving as an associate professor. He worked at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford from 1960 to 1961. He joined the faculty at Berkeley in 1962, where he was a professor of economics and mathematics until his retirement in 1991.

Mr. Debreu continued to lecture at Berkeley and elsewhere after his retirement, Mr. De Soto said.

Mr. Debreu is survived by his wife, Francoise Debreu of Walnut Creek, Calif.; and two daughters, Chantal De Soto of Aptos, Calif., and Florence Tetrault of Vancouver, British Columbia. A service at the columbarium of P�re-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris will be held tomorrow.

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