Gerard Debreu

Gérard Debreu (July 4, 1921 – December 31, 2004) was a French economist and mathematician, who also came to have United States citizenship. Best known as a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began work in 1962, he won the 1983 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. His father was the business partner of his maternal grandfather in lace manufacturing, a traditional industry in Calais. Prior to the start of World War II, he received his baccalauréat and went to Ambert to begin preparing for the entrance examination of a grande école. Later on, he moved from Ambert to Grenoble to complete his preparation, both places being in the so-called "Free Zone" during World War II. In 1941, he was admitted to the...