Jean Drèze - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jean Drèze is a development economist who has been influential in Indian economic policymaking. He is a naturalized Indian of Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

origin. His work in India include issues like hunger, famine, gender inequality, child health and education, and the NREGA. He had conceptualised and drafted the first version of the NREGA.

His co-authors include Nobel laureate in economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...

, with whom he has written on famine, and Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, Kt, FBA is a British economist and academic. He is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics , and 2010 Professor of Collège de...

, with whom he has written on policy reform when market prices are distorted. He is currently an honorary Professor at the Delhi School of Economics

Delhi School of Economics

Delhi School of Economics , commonly referred to as DSE or D School, is a centre of post graduate learning of the University of Delhi. The centre is situated in the university's North Campus in Maurice Nagar, and is surrounded by a host of other prestigious academic institutions of the country...

, and Senior Professor at the G. B. Pant Social Science Institute

G. B. Pant Social Science Institute

Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute is an Indian social science research institute located in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India....

, Allahabad. He is a member of the National Advisory Council

National Advisory Council

The National Advisory Council of India is an advisory body set up to monitor the implementation of the UPA government's manifesto, the Common Minimum Programme. It is a brainchild of Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi. It is also informally called as UPA's Planning Commission for social...

of India in both first and second term.

Early life

Jean Drèze is from a prominent Belgian

Belgium

academic family. His father is the economist Jacques Drèze

Jacques Drèze

Jacques H. Drèze is a Belgian economist noted for his contributions to economic theory, econometrics, and economic policy as well as for his leadership in the economics profession. Drèze was the first President of the European Economic Association in 1986 and was the President of the Econometric...

, founder, the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics, at the Université catholique de Louvain

Université catholique de Louvain

The Université catholique de Louvain, sometimes known, especially in Belgium, as UCL, is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It is located in Louvain-la-Neuve and in Brussels...

.

He studied Mathematical Economics at the University of Essex and did his PhD (Economics) at the Indian Statistical Institute

Indian Statistical Institute

Indian Statistical Institute is a public research institute and university in Kolkata's northern outskirt of Baranagar, India founded by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in 1931...

, New Delhi. His brother, Xavier Drèze, is a marketing professor at UCLA.

Career

Jean Drèze taught at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

and the Delhi School of Economics, and had been Visiting Professor at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. Presently, he is an Honorary Chair Professor of the "Planning and Development Unit" created by the Planning Commission, Government of India, in the Department of Economics, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India. He has made wide-ranging contributions to development economics and public economics, with special reference to India.

He has worked on many issues relating to development economics including hunger, famine, education, gender inequality, childcare, school feeding, employment guarantee etc. His works combine standard economic methods (such as his articles relating to poverty in India) and tools that are used more commonly by anthropologists (such as his work on the village of Palanpur, Moradabad District, Uttar Pradesh, India with Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Stern

, Peter Lanjouw and others, which included him living for a period in village under the same conditions as local people, farming a plot of land and keeping animals as recounted with Naresh Sharma in the article "Sharecropping in a North Indian Village", Journal of Development Studies, Oct. 1996). The combination of extensive field work and qualitative analysis of everyday life and poverty, along with quantitative work makes his work distinctive in the field of economics. He uniquely brings to the table is extensive fieldwork — few economists live as much in the country's villages — combined with outstanding analytical skills.

It is not coincidence that Amartya Sen coauthored on a number of major publications on India, given his unique contacts with the grassroots and has even remarked that the "agreeable thing" about working with Dreze is that "he does most of the work and I get most of the credit".

PROBE Report

A key work widely cited that Dreze worked on as part of a small team was the primary education study of key states in northern India typically referred to by its short name, The PROBE Report, or The Public Report on Basic Education (1999). It remains a key reference due to the lack of similarly comprehensive studies using grassroots development specialists.

He has lived in India since 1979 and became an Indian citizen in 2002.

Social activism

Apart from academic work he has been actively involved in many social movements including the peace movement

Peace movement

A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...

, the Right to Information campaign that led to the Right to Information Act

Right to Information Act

The Right to Information Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of India "to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens." The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir has its own act...

in India, the Right to Food campaign in India, among others.

During the 1990-1991 Iraq War, he joined a peace camp stationed on the Iraq-Kuwait border. His 1992 article with Haris Gazdar, "Hunger and Poverty in Iraq, 1991", was one of the first assessments of Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

's economy after the Gulf war

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, and an early warning about the potential human costs of the Iraq sanctions

Iraq sanctions

The Iraq sanctions were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 , and certain portions including reparations to Kuwait...

. Another book that came out of Iraq is War and Peace in the Gulf, edited by Bela Bhatia, Jean Dreze and Kathy Kelly

Kathy Kelly

Kathy Kelly is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and currently a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She has been described as "probably the most respected leader in the...

Publications

Dreze, Jean "Patterns of Literacy and their Social Context", (originally written 199?), in Veena Das (ed.), 2004, Oxford Handbook of Indian Sociology, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Dreze, Jean, 2002, "On Research and Action", Economic and Political Weekly, March 2, 37 (9). New Delhi.
Dreze, Jean and Haris Gazdar, 1997. "Uttar Pradesh: the Burden of Inertia", in Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, (eds) Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen, (eds), 1997, Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. 1989. Hunger and Public Action. Oxford University Press.
Drèze J. and Sen, A. (eds.). 1990. The Political Economy of Hunger. 3 volumes, Oxford University Press.
Drèze, J. 1990. Famine Prevention in India. In Drèze J. and Sen, A. (eds.) The Political Economy of Hunger. vol 2. Oxford University Press.
Stern, N. and Drèze J. 1991. Policy Reform, Shadow Prices and Market Prices. Journal of Public Economics.
Ahmad E, Drèze J, Hills J, Sen A K (eds.) 1991. Social Security in Developing Countries. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Drèze J., 1991. Public Action for Social Security: Foundations and Strategy. In Ahmad E, Drèze J, Hills J, Sen A K (eds.). Social Security in Developing Countries. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Drèze J. and H. Gazdar. 1992. Hunger and Poverty in Iraq, 1991. World Development.
Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. 1995. India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity. Oxford University Press.
Drèze J., M. Murthi and A-C. Guio. 1995. Mortality, Fertility and Gender Bias in India. Population and Development Review.
Drèze J. and P.V. Srinivasan. 1997. Widowhood and Poverty in Rural India. Journal of Development Economics.
Drèze J., M. Samson and S. Singh. 1997. The Dam and the Nation: Displacement and Resettlement in the Narmada Valley. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0 19 5640047.
Dreze, Jean and Naresh Sharma, "Palanpur: Population, Society Economy", chapter 1 in Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern, eds., Economic Development in Palanpur over Five Decades, 1998. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dreze, Jean, Peter Lanjouw and Naresh Sharma, "Economic Development in Palanpur, 1957-93", chapter 2 in Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern, eds., Economic Development in Palanpur over Five Decades, 1998. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dreze, Jean and Naresh Sharam, "Tenancy", chapter 8 in Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern, eds., Economic Development in Palanpur over Five Decades, 1998. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dreze, Jean, Peter Lanjouw and Naresh Sharma, "Credit", chapter 9 in Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern, eds., Economic Development in Palanpur over Five Decades, 1998. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. (eds.) 1997. Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Baland, J-M. Drèze J. and L. Leruth. 1999. Daily Wages and Piece Rates in Agrarian Economies. Journal of Development Economics.
A. De and J Drèze. 1999. Public Report on Basic Education in India. The PROBE report. Oxford University Press. 0195648706
Drèze J. (ed.) 1999. The Economics of Famine. International Library of Critical Writings in Economics. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Dreze, Jean and Naresh Sharma, 1996, "Sharecropping in a North Indian Village", Journal of Development Studies, 33(1):1-40.
Drèze J. and R. Khera. 2000. Crime, Gender and Society in India. Population and Development Review.
Bhatia B, J. Drèze & K. Kelly. 2001. War and Peace in the Gulf: Testimonies of the Gulf Peace Team. London: Spokesman Books. [published on the tenth anniversary of the Team's attempt to stop the Gulf War through non-violent occupation].
Drèze J. and G.G. Kingdon. 2001. School Participation in Rural India. Review of Development Economics 5(1), 1-24.
Drèze J. 2001. Fertility, Education and Development: Evidence from India. Population and Development Review.
Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. (eds.) 2002. India: Development and Participation. Oxford University Press.
Deaton A. and Drèze J. 2002.Poverty and Inequality in India: A Reexamination. Economic and Political Weekly, 7 September. 3729-3748.
Drèze J. 2003. Food Security and the Right to Food. In S. Mahendra Dev, K.P. Kannan and N. Ramachandran (eds). Toward a Food Secure India. New Delhi: Institute for Human Development.
Drèze, J. and A. Goyal. 2003. Future of Mid-Day Meals. Economic and Political Weekly, November 1.
Drèze J. 2004. * Democracy and the Right to Food. Economic and Political Weekly. 1723-1731.
Deaton, Angus and Dreze, Jean (2008), "Nutrition In India: Facts and Interpretations" http://weblamp.princeton.edu/chw/papers/deaton_dreze_india_nutrition.pdf

External links

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