The economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi, long head of the OFCE and professor at Sciences-po, died in Paris at the age of 79. “He died last night,” said Xavier Ragot, president of the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE) that Jean-Paul Fitoussi had chaired for 22 years, from 1989 to 2010.
A Keynesian economist, specialist in theories of inflation, unemployment, and the role of economic policies, he was also a member of the Economic Analysis Council (CAE), a body responsible for advising the government, and headed the economic advisory committee of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in the early 1990s.
Between 2008 and 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis created by the collapse of subprime mortgages, he participated with 22 international experts in the work of the commission chaired by the Nobel Prize in economics Joseph Stiglitz, and launched by Nicolas Sarkozy on the measurement economic performance.
Jean-Paul Fitoussi has also worked extensively in Italy, where he notably taught at the Luiss University in Rome, and held a seat on the board of directors of Telecom Italia from 2004 to 2017.
He had supported Macron… then regretted it
“I learn with emotion and sadness the news of the disappearance of Professor Jean-Paul Fitoussi, a great economist at Sciences-po. A pillar. A friend. To which I owe so much, ”reacted on Twitter on Friday the former head of the Italian government Enrico Letta. For his part, the Minister of Public Service Renato Brunetta, hailed “a companion of so many fights and a friend of Italy”.
He campaigned for a rapprochement between France and Italy, in order to weigh more in Europe. In 2017, he supported Emmanuel Macron for the presidential election. Three years later, he explained in an interview: “in the last elections, all shame drunk, I supported Macron” and “I was fooled”.