PRESENT: COMBATING POVERTY

Prof. François Bourguignon, Professor of Economics, Paris School of Economics. He is one of the world’s leading scholars on poverty and inequality.

Bourguignon’s work is global, looking at poverty and inequality within poor countries as well as rich countries, and poverty and inequality in the world as a whole. His research is both theoretical and empirical and deeply contributed to the modern understanding of both phenomena.

Bourguignon, especially during his time as Chief Economist of the World Bank, participated in policy work around the world, and consistently argued for a better understanding and study of inequality, including inequality of opportunity, and for thinking about growth, inequality, and poverty together, rather than as separate topics. 

Amongst Prof. Bourguignon’s distinguished awards and memberships are the Juan Luis Londono Prize, Latin American and Caribbean Economist Association (2012), Médaille d’honneur de la Santé et des Affaires Sociales, France (2012), Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, France (2010), Médaille d’argent, Cnrs, France, (1997), El Fasi Prize for development economics, ‘Association des Universités de langue française (Aupelf/Uref), Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, France, 1991, Fellow of the Econometric Society, (1986) and Médaille de bronze, Cnrs, France, (1982). He received honorary degrees from universities in Canada, Belgium and Switzerland.  

He has been a member of several scientific and advisory committees or boards in international organizations as well as the president of several international research associations. He has served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisors of the French Prime Minister, the Advisory Group on Societal Analysis in the European Commission and the European Research Council. He presently sits in the High Committee on Public Finance and he chairs the expert group on the minimum wage in France.