French Economist Maurice Allais, 77, Wins Nobel Prize

Maurice Allais, a Paris shopkeeper’s son who became a “giant” of economic theory, won the Nobel Prize for economics Tuesday.

Allais, 77, developed formulas to make it possible for large enterprises, particularly public ones, to keep a nation’s economy in balance by regulating prices and allocating resources. His theories on markets and prices helped rebuild France’s economy after World War II.

After the award was announced, Allais said he had given up hope of ever winning the economics prize, which was established 20 years ago. “I’ve been mentioned so many times before, I just didn’t think I would get it,” he said from an apartment in a Paris suburb.

“He is a giant in economic theoretic analysis,” said Assar Lindbeck, who heads the committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science.

“He’s been under consideration for a long time,” Lindbeck said. “It took a long time to investigate him because of the great volume and complexity of his works.”

According to the citation, Allais was honored “for his pioneering contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of resources.”

This year’s prizes are worth about $393,000. Allais is the first French national to win the economics award, according to the official list, but 1983 laureate Gerard Debreu of the United States was born in Calais. He was a student of Allais.

Allais did his major work in Nazi-occupied France and the postwar period. He published “In Search of an Economic Discipline” in 1943 and “Economy and Interest” in 1947.

‘Way of Helping People’

Of his career, the laureate said Tuesday: “My motivation when I was young was an idea of being able to improve the conditions of life, to try to find a remedy to many of the problems facing the world. That’s what led me into economics. I saw it as a way of helping people.”

Jacques Levy, director of the Ecole Nationale de Mines, said: “He was the mentor for everyone involved in the economy in postwar France between 1945 and 1968, all the people who were in charge of the biggest enterprises and of the state planning apparatus.”

Allais taught at Levy’s institution until his retirement nine years ago and is not widely known outside France. He has continued research and writing.

His theories are expressed in complicated mathematical formulas. They form the basis for sorting out the thousands of independent factors involved in marketing goods and services: How much should a train ticket cost, for example, or what is the right price for a kilowatt-hour of electricity?

Levy said the idea is to keep supply and demand in balance, and according to the Allais theories, “It’s the government’s role to organize this fair competition.”

The academy said the French economist’s work in some ways parallels that of earlier Nobel laureates Paul Samuelson of the United States and Sir John Hicks of Britain. Allais says he is not from any mold.

“If you will permit me, I don’t fit into any category except my own,” he declared Tuesday. “I am not a monetarist and I am not a Keynesian. On certain points I agree with each.”

PAST NOBEL WINNERS IN ECONOMICS

YEAR NAME NATIONALITY BASIS OF AWARD 1969 Ragnar Frisch Norwegian Development of econometrics Jan Tinbergen Dutch 1970 Paul A. Samuelson American Application of a new scientific analysis to economic theories 1971 Simon Kuznets American Introduction of the concept of the gross national product 1972 Kenneth J. Arrow American Contributions to equilibrium and welfare theories John R. Hicks British 1973 Wassily Leontief American Analysis showing how changes in one economic variable affect other sectors 1974 Gunnar Myrdal Swedish Contributions in the theory of money and Friedrich A. von Hayek Austrian economic fluctuations 1975 Leonid V. Kantorovich Russian Applying statistical methods to resource allocation Tjallig C. Koopmans American 1976 Milton Friedman American Development of monetary theory 1977 Bertil Ohlin Swedish Contributions to the theory of international trade James Edward Meade British 1978 Herbert A. Simon American Pioneering work into the decision-making processes in complex economic organizations 1979 Theodore W. Schultz American Work in economic development research Sir Arthur Lewis British with special regard to the problems of developing countries 1980 Lawrence R. Klein American Pioneering econometric models to forecast economic trends 1981 James Tobin American Analysis of financial markets and their relation to spending decisions, employment, output and prices 1982 George J. Stigler American Pioneering studies of industrial production 1983 Gerard Debreu American Research on equilibrium in a market economy 1984 Sir Richard Stone British Developing accounting systems that help governments allocate their financial resources 1985 Franco Modigliani American Analysis of savings and financial markets 1986 James McGill American Contributions to the theory of economic and political Buchanan decision-making 1987 Robert M. Solow American Contributions to the theory of economic growth 1988 Maurice Allais French Contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of resources