Biography of Maurice Allais

Global economies

31 May 1911 9 October 2010 Maurice Allais was born in Paris on May 31, 1911; engineer, physicist and Economist, for his contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of resources, received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1988. The young Maurice grows in the family shop in the French capital parents sell cheeses. The father died a prisoner in Germany in 1915. His specialty in the studies through the École polytechnique (1931), then to the École des mines (Mining Engineering, 1934). Her career began in 1936 as a mining engineer. In 1939 and 1940 's under arms; He returned to his job until 1948, at which time publishing his first writings. Until 1944 he worked as Professor of Economics at the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris; from 1946 he became Director of the Center for economic analysis at the same University. It becomes then a full-time researcher and teacher. Throughout his academic career will get fourteen scientific awards, including the prestigious Gold Medal of the CNRS (National Center of scientific research), until I mentioned earlier Nobel Prize. Although officially retired in 1980, enter continues anyway its research and teaching. In 2005, Jacques Chirac awarded him the Grand Cross of the Legion of honor for his extraordinary career. Maurice Allais has published approximately a hundred articles and several books, among which we mention "the world crisis today" (1999) in which advances of reform proposals for the entire global financial system. As an economist he made important contributions in decision theory, monetary policy and other fields; his name is particularly associated with the so-called "Allais paradox", described in 1953: this is a problem in the theory of decisions which contradicts the expected utility hypothesis. Also as a physicist has made major contributions: in relation to gravitational anomalies described-for the first time in 1954-the ' Allais effect "is the result of an experiment with a pendulum paraconico during two different Eclipse. Still, with the "traveler's metaphor of Calais" demonstrates, through trial and error methods, that mention of the cost of a good or service is an improper concept, and that is more accurate to talk about the cost of a decision, pointing at what level this is considered. During the years of his academic career Allais has repeatedly deployed politically; in 1947 participates together with the neoclassical economists Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek at the meeting of the founding of the Society of Monte Pellegrino (near Vevey, Switzerland): members wanted to counteract the rise of Keynesianism and promote a global market economy. In 2005 he was able to establish itself as one of the largest and influential critics of the European Constitution, despite being a staunch supporter of the European Community. He died on October 10, 2010 at the ripe old age of 99 years.