Jean Dreze Biography
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| Jean Dreze |
Jean
Dreze is an eminent development economist. He belongs to Belgium. Now he lives
in India. He has been working for years with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. He has
a vital role in Indian economic policy making.
Early
Life
Jean
Dreze was born in 1959 in an academic family of Belgium. His father Jacques
Dreze was also an eminent economist. Jean studied Mathematical Economics
at the University of Essex. He did his PhD at the Indian Statistical Institute
in New Delhi. His topic of PhD was “Theoretical economics of cost-benefit
analysis”.
Career
Jean
started his career as a teacher of London School of Economics in the 1980s. It
was his only full-time post. He also worked at the Delhi School of Economics
and at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad as a Visiting
Professor. He is now in the post of an Honorary Chair Professor of the
"Planning and Development Unit", Government of India. The unit
has been created by the Indian Planning Commission. He is also an Honorary
Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Allahabad. He was a
member of the National Advisory Council of India for 2 terms.
Dreze
has worked on a lot of issues on development economics. He has worked on
hunger, famine, education, gender inequality, child care, school feeding,
employment guarantee and many more issues.
Jean
has a very close relationship with Amartya Sen. He has co-authored on a number
of major publications on India. Amartya Sen once said about working with Jean ,
“he does most of the work and I get most of the credit”. |
| Jean Dreze with Amartya Sen |
Jean
Dreze and Indian Economics
Jean
has been living in India for many years. He has got Indian Citizenship. He is
an influential person in Indian economic policy making. He has been working issues
like hunger, famine, gender inequality, child health and education etc. His
most notable work is on NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, now it
is called MGNREGA [Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act]).
The first version of NREGA was conceptualised and drafted by Dreze.
Social
Activities
Dreze
is well known for his commitment to social justice internationally. He
joined a peace camp stationed on the Iraq-Kuwait border during the 1990-1991
Iraq War. There was a huge risk. But he could not stay at home.
In
the year of 1992 Dreze wrote an article “Hunger and Poverty in Iraq, 1991”.
Co-author of that article was Haris Gazdar (economist of Pakistan). It was one
of the first assessments of Iraq’s economy after the Gulf War. He wrote another
book on Iraq “War and Peace in the Gulf”.
Publications
Dreze
has written many books and articles. Some of those books are-Hunger and Public
Action, The Political Economy of Hunger (3 volumes), India: Economic
Development and Social Opportunity, The Economics of Famine etc.
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