Jean Tirole (France, 1953), winner of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Economics, Finance and Management category, is among the world's most reputed economists and the author of acclaimed studies applying Game Theory and Information Theory to economic analysis.
The Frontiers of Knowledge Awards are intended to recognize and promote research of excellence. The breadth of disciplines addressed and their monetary amount – a combined purse of 3.2 million euros spread over eight prize categories – place them among the world's foremost award schemes.
Jean Tirole is enamored of the science of economics: "Economics is central to the understanding of our societies and essential to make our world a better one. Often called the dismal science, it makes explicit what's feasible and what's not; the common refusal to consider tradeoffs implies that we often content ourselves with mediocre policymaking".
"Modern economic theory has broadened its scope of investigation, and has substantially increased its policy relevance", he goes on. "Rather than a dismal science, lay people will discover it to be a rigorous, fun, and deeply human science".
Tirole is the author of over 150 articles and a number of texts that are international reference works. He seeks, and finds, his inspiration in the economic challenges of the day, from recession or global warming to more concrete issues like antitrust policies or labor market reform. Among the objects of his study are such varied questions as conflictive behavior in organizations or the optimal design of contracts.
He has also been looking at some of the causes behind today's economic downturn, like flaws in financial sector regulation or the shortage of market liquidity.
Tirole's speciality is using tools borrowed from mathematics. Game Theory predicts the strategies that will be chosen by players in a given situation, when each one depends on the choices made by other actors equally in the dark, and is now among the dominant theories in economic analysis. Information Theory, as employed by Tirole, describes how these same players go about using information in a strategic way.
He believes that research outcomes must be taken up by policy makers: "I unqualifiedly share the view that policy design should be based on rigorous, fundamental research". In return, researchers should be alert to the issues that concern society and strive to provide it with innovative, viable solutions.
Jean Tirole first trained as a civil engineer then went on to obtain a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University Paris-Dauphine, and another in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is currently director of the Jean-Jacques Laffont Foundation — named for an economist he worked with in the past — at the Toulouse School of Economics, and Scientific Director of the Industrial Economics Institute of the same French city.
Award presentation ceremony
The presentation ceremony will take place on June 18 in the BBVA Foundation's Madrid headquarters under the presidency of the Minister of Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia, and the BBVA Foundation President, Francisco González. The event will welcome eminent members of the international scientific community and high-level government institutions alongside personalities from the worlds of business and the arts.
The Foundation is partnered in these awards by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), whose advisory input was instrumental in the appointment of the prize juries. The jury in the Economics, Finance and Management category was formed by José Manuel González-Páramo, member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank; Timothy J. Besley, of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); Peyton Young, from the University of Oxford; Guido Tabellini of Bocconi University in Milan; and Hervé Moulin, of Rice University.
The BBVA Foundation supports knowledge generation, scientific research and the promotion of culture, relaying the results of its work to society at large. This effort materializes in research projects, human capital investment, specialization courses, grants and awards. Among the Foundation's preferred areas of activity are basic sciences, biomedicine, ecology and conservation biology, the social sciences and literary and musical creation.