His primary and secondary school courses were studied at Calais College. In France, colleges are pre-university institutions that prepare students for entering universities. Influenced by the excellent middle school physics teacher, he considered becoming a physicist.
In the summer of 194 1 year, Debru entered a prestigious normal school, where he studied and lived until the spring of 1944.
In the early postwar period, Debrou was a member of the French informal bourbaki, and bourbaki was a group of young French mathematicians. From the end of 1945 to the beginning of 1946, de brug obtained the qualification of mathematics teaching assistant in Paris and began to study postgraduate courses. However, although he admired Baubeck's mathematical form, which was dominant in France at that time, he thought that he should not engage in the research of this rational field all his life, but should put this subject into application. This led him into the field of economics that fascinated him. When he was studying Morris at 1943? Leon stated in Alai's Study on Individual Economy Theory? Vara became interested in general equilibrium when he initiated the mathematical theory of general economic equilibrium in 1874- 1877. After World War II, Europe faced the arduous task of reconstruction. Debru realized that economics would play an important role in it, which further stimulated his enthusiasm for economics. As a result, interest has become a lifelong career.
1948 In the summer, Debru attended a seminar held in Salzburg for several weeks. This seminar was organized by people like Vasily? People like Leontief teach economics. At the end of the same year, he was nominated by Alai for a scholarship from Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation gave him a golden opportunity to spend 1948- 1950 in the United States, Norway and Sweden. From 65438 to 0949, he visited Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago and Columbia University. 1950 visited the University of Oslo in Norway and Uppsala University in Sweden. At that time, ragnar? Frish is the most famous economic theorist in Scandinavia, and Stockholm College enjoys a high reputation in Sweden. There, Debrou met several famous figures in economics, such as Lindahl and lundberg. This experience is of great significance to his future career development. He once said in his autobiography: "My days in Salzburg and my Rockefeller scholarship brought me into contact with all the new economic developments that were cut off in France." The visits and contacts during this period have kept him at the forefront of economics until today.
During his visit to the University of Chicago from 65438 to 0949, the Cowles Committee offered him a position as an associate researcher in economics.
That's when he started talking to Kenneth. Arrow co-published an epoch-making article "The Existence of Equilibrium in a Competitive Economy" (1954). In this article, they use the topological method which is little known in economics so far, and provide authoritative mathematical proof for the existence of general equilibrium. These arguments and other general equilibrium systems aimed at proving the equation of supply and demand may have a unique solution, which is often overlooked. Obviously, in the real world, a single price and quantity are always determined in different markets in some way. Therefore, people can't help but think that economists had better spend their time discovering how the market produces unique solutions, rather than worrying about whether a set of simultaneous equations is mathematically solvable. However, the general equilibrium theory is applicable to all branches of modern economics. If people are not sure that the general equilibrium model does have a solution, they will never be able to use the general equilibrium analysis with confidence. In addition, the existence of general equilibrium depends on certain restrictive conditions, which are helpful to understand the ways to realize multi-market equilibrium in the real world. There is no doubt that this article by Arrow and Debru really makes some aspects of competition in real life clearer.
From 1955, Debru and other members of the Cowles Committee went to Yale University, where they served as associate professors until 1960. From 65438 to 0959, he published his masterpiece "Value Theory, Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium". This book has little content, but since then, it has marked the last stage of the maturity of economists in mathematics. He used the topology of set theory, not calculus and matrix algebra, and accurately described the results of all traditional competitive price theories with the maximized economic system. For those who can only think in words, this book gives them no concessions. Even so, it has a great influence on the views in economics textbooks.
De Bruu later published a large number of professional articles on the so-called "existence theorem", trying to loosen the strict hypothesis of proving the existence of general equilibrium under competitive conditions; At the same time, it also discusses an unrelated problem: the convergence rate of the actual economic system to the general equilibrium solution. Hildenbrand (h? Ben Wilden Brand's "Mathematical Economics: Debru's 12 Papers" was selected and reprinted from these articles.
1956, Debru received a doctorate in economics from the University of Paris. 1962 became a professor of economics at the university of California, Berkeley, and later 1975 also served as a professor of mathematics. Debru is a member of the editorial board of various economic journals, and has been a member of the American Academy of Sciences since 1977. Debru is one of the founders of topology and set theory in microeconomics.
While working in the Cowles Committee, the research director Charlene Marilynn Dangelo? Coomans introduced him to Kenneth. Arrow. At that time, Arrow was working at Stanford University, and like Debru, he was also studying the general economic equilibrium. Debru and Arrow conducted extremely friendly cooperative research and produced many cooperative publications, one of which was The Balanced Existence of Competitive Economy, published in 1954.
1In the summer and autumn of 953, Debrou spent six months in the French power sector in his last year in Chicago. There, he studied the uncertainty of the effective storage capacity of hydropower station reservoirs. Influenced by his practice in Paris and a paper on emergency commodities written by Arrow, he determined the basis of an important chapter on economic uncertainty in his classic book Value Theory: Analysis of Economic Equilibrium Principles (1959). From 65438 to 0955, he moved to Yale University with the Cowles Committee, which became the Cowles Foundation. When he was at Yale, he finished the book Value Theory. This book makes a rational analysis of the general theory of economic equilibrium. The original version of this classic book appeared in Paris University in the form of doctoral thesis from 65438 to 0956.
Debru worked at Yale until 1960, and investigated several questions about basic utility. In the second year, he spent his time in the Center for Advanced Research in Behavioral Science in Stanford, California, where he devoted all his time to the comprehensive proof of the general theorem of existence problems. Meanwhile, Berkeley offered him an attractive job, near Stanford, where he could work with Errol and Herbert? Skaf cooperated with other celebrities, and Berkeley provided good conditions for scientific research.
Debru spent the second half of the semester at Yale in the autumn of 196 1, doing research on economic core. Later, at 1963, he wrote a paper on this with a scarf. 1962 to 65438+ 10 became a professor of economics at Berkeley University, and stayed there since then, and was appointed as a professor of mathematics in July 1975. Since the autumn of 1968, he has been away for a long time, giving lectures and guiding research in many famous universities and research centers at home and abroad. He also received many honorary doctorates and participated in several famous professional organizations and magazines as a famous member, researcher, official and editor-in-chief. Debru is the editor-in-chief of Journal of Economic Theory (since 1972), Journal of Applied Mathematics of Industrial Applied Mathematics Society (1976- 1979) and a member of the advisory committee of Journal of Mathematical Economics (since 1974). Received honorary degrees in science from Bonn University (1977), Lausanne University (1980), Northwest University (198 1), Toulouse University of Social Sciences (1983) and many other universities. His overseas trip included a visit to the Center for Operational Research and Econometrics of the University of Leuven as a Guggenheim researcher and visiting professor (1968- 1969, 197 1- 1972). Visiting Churchill College and Cambridge University as an overseas researcher (1972); Visiting Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand as a visiting professor (1973,1987); And visited ceremsp in Paris as an informal researcher (1980).
Debrou was cautious and showed a clear desire for accuracy. This character partly comes from his mathematical characteristics and partly from his outstanding exploration of Excellence and correctness. After a long and serious investigation and evaluation, he showed his scientific achievements to the public. This is 1983 published "Mathematical Economics-20 Papers by Debru".
Debrou left Yale University on 1960 and became a professor of economics and mathematics at the University of California. 1969- 197 1, President of Econometrics Society, Member of American Association for the Development of Science after 1970. Honorary degrees were awarded by Bonn University and Lausanne University in 1977 and 1980 respectively. But what really brought him great happiness was the title of "Knight of the French Legion of Honor" he won in 1976. He won this honor because during his stay in the United States, his language, eating habits and personal charm all had a typical French flavor at first glance. However, this honor is not as good as the Nobel Prize in Economics won by him 1983.
In economics, Debrou firmly believes in the concept of division of labor and the law of comparative advantage. But he is unwilling to comment on modern economic problems, such as unemployment, inflation and the economic development of third world countries. He would rather leave these questions to experts in those fields. He is a man without an official position. He shared his wisdom and imagination of the world with us through the manuscript. As announced by the Nobel Prize Committee, Debru applied new analytical methods to economic theory and expounded the general equilibrium theory rigorously and systematically, and many economists will remember his name firmly.
Debru is a master of mathematical economics. He replaced calculus with set theory, and systematically proved three basic principles: the existence, stability and state of general equilibrium are always equal to the state of maximum efficiency. He simplified the proof of general equilibrium and broadened the definition of goods, so that the general equilibrium theory can be used not only for pure static equilibrium analysis, but also for spatial analysis, transient analysis and uncertainty analysis of production and consumption activities. His general equilibrium model integrates static analysis, location theory, capital theory, financial theory, international trade and macroeconomic theory and economic behavior theory under uncertain conditions.
His main academic achievement is his contribution to the general theory of economic equilibrium. This is reflected in his masterpiece Value Theory: Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium, which was published in 1959 with only 102 pages. It was this extremely short book that helped him win the Nobel Prize in Economics. His academic contribution lies not in the theory itself, but in the improvement of analytical methods.
Debru's main theoretical contributions include: underutilization of resources, summarizing Pareto optimality theory (welfare economics), existence of equilibrium with related commodities (general competitive equilibrium theory), expressing preference order relationship with utility function, aggregate demand function (utility demand theory), and convergence theorem of economic accounting. In the early 1950s, he and his collaborators established the basic concept of microeconomics, which led to a revolution in the study of western economic theory. In addition, the field of general equilibrium analysis initiated by Debru has become the unified framework of most western microeconomic theories. The axiomatic analysis method he used has become the standard form of western economic analysis. Since 1970s, capital theory, location theory, financial theory, international trade and macroeconomic theory have all benefited from his general equilibrium theory concepts, ideas and newly added tools.