Jean Drèze (born 22 January 1959) is a Belgian-born

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n welfare economist,

social scientist Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

and

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

. He has worked on several developmental issues facing India like social welfare, poverty and gender inequality. His co-authors include

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher. Sen has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, Sen received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions ...

, with whom he has written on

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

, Nicholas Stern, with whom he has written on policy reform when market prices are distorted, and Nobel laureate in economics

Angus Deaton Sir Angus Stewart Deaton (born 19 October 1945) is a British-American economist and academic. Deaton is currently a Senior Scholar and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School ...

. He is currently an honorary professor at the

Delhi School of Economics Delhi School of Economics (DSE), popularly referred to as D School, is an institution of higher learning within the Delhi University. The Delhi School of Economics is situated in University of Delhi's North Campus in Maurice Nagar. Establishe ...

, visiting professor at the Department of Economics, Ranchi University, and also the member of Economic Advisory Council to the

Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu The chief minister of Tamil Nadu is the head of government, chief executive of the Indian Federated state, state of Tamil Nadu. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the Governor (India), governor is a state's ''de jure'' head, but ''de ...

headed by the Nobel laureate

Esther Duflo Esther Duflo, FBA (; born 25 October 1972) is a French-American economist currently serving as the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2019, she w ...

. He was a member of the

National Advisory Council The National Advisory Council (NAC) was an advisory body set up by the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2004 to advise the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh. Sonia Gandhi served as its chairperson for much of the tenur ...

of India in both the terms of the UPA government, but only for a year in the first and two in the second.

Early life

Jean Drèze was born on 22 January 1959 in

Leuven Leuven (, , ), also called Louvain (, , ), is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipalit ...

, Belgium. He is the son of Jacques Drèze who founded of the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics at the

Université catholique de Louvain UCLouvain (or Université catholique de Louvain , French for Catholic University of Louvain, officially in English the University of Louvain) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university and one of the oldest in Europe (originally establishe ...

. His brother, Xavier Drèze, is a marketing and consumer research scholar. He studied mathematical economics at the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. The university comprises three camp ...

in the 1980s and did his PhD (theoretical economics of cost-benefit analysis) at the

Indian Statistical Institute The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a public research university headquartered in Kolkata, India with centers in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Tezpur. It was declared an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India und ...

, New Delhi. He has lived in India since 1979 and became an Indian citizen in 2002, which meant renouncing Belgian citizenship.

Personal life

He was based in Delhi (1993 to 2002) and in Allahabad (2002 to 2014). He currently lives in

Ranchi Ranchi (; ) is the capital city and also the largest district by population of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern ...

Career

Drèze taught at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

in the 1980s, his only full-time post, and at the

, and had been Visiting Professor at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. He was 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, India. He has made wide-ranging contributions to development economics and public economics, with special reference to India. He has made significant contributions to the field of development economics, focusing on various critical issues such as hunger, famine, education, gender inequality, childcare, school feeding, and employment guarantee. His approach to research combines conventional economic methods, as seen in his insightful articles addressing poverty in India, with methodologies commonly employed by anthropologists. One notable example of his interdisciplinary work is his collaboration with Nicholas Stern, Peter Lanjouw, and other researchers in studying the village of Palanpur in the

Moradabad District Moradabad district () is one of the districts of Uttar Pradesh, India. The city of Moradabad is the district headquarters. Moradabad district is part of Moradabad division. It used to be the second most populous district of Uttar Pradesh out o ...

of Uttar Pradesh, India. For this study, he immersed himself in the village, living under the same conditions as the local population. This involved farming a plot of land and raising animals, an experience that he recounted alongside Naresh Sharma in their article "Sharecropping in a North Indian Village" published in the Journal of Development Studies in October 1996. By combining extensive fieldwork with qualitative analysis of everyday life and poverty, complemented by quantitative research, his work stands out in the field of economics. He brings a unique perspective to his research, leveraging his rich fieldwork experiences along with his analytical work.

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.

Social activism

Drèze is well known for his commitment to social justice, both in India and internationally. During and after his PhD in India, he adopted a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity. While in the LSE, he frequently slept rough and lived with homeless squatters, helping to start a squatters movement in 1988 that opened buildings to the homeless and defied eviction. He wrote a short book about this movement and the life of the homeless in London, called ''No. 1 Clapham Road: the diary of a squat''. Dreze is known for refusing luxury and, while doing fieldwork, lives and works in the same conditions as his respondents. In Delhi he and his wife Bela Bhatia had a one-room house in a ''jhuggi''. Apart from academic work he has been actively involved in many social movements including the

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pe ...

, the Right to Information campaign that led to the

Right to Information Act Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theor ...

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-Saudi border. His 1992 article with Haris Gazdar, "Hunger and Poverty in Iraq, 1991", was one of the first assessments of

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

's economy after the

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

, and an early warning about the potential human costs of the Iraq sanctions. Another book that came out of Iraq is ''War and Peace in the Gulf'', edited by Bela Bhatia, Jean Dreze and Kathy Kelly.Bhatia B, J. Drèze & K. Kelly. 2001. War and Peace in the Gulf: Testimonies of the Gulf Peace Team. London: Spokesman Books.

Publications

Books * Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. 1989. ''Hunger and Public Action''. Oxford University Press. * (as Jean Delarue) 1990. ''No.1 Clapham Road: The diary of a squat''. Peaceprint. * Drèze J. and Sen, A. (eds.), 1991. ''The Political Economy of Hunger.'' Three volumes. Oxford University Press. * Ahmad E, Drèze J, Hills J, Sen A K (eds.) 1991. ''Social Security in Developing Countries''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. * Drèze J. and Sen, A. 1995. ''The political Economy of Hunger: selected essays''. Clarendon Press. (abridged) * Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. 1995. ''India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity''. Oxford University Press. * Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen, (eds.), 1997. ''Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives''. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. * Drèze J., M. Samson and S. Singh, 1997. ''The Dam and the Nation: Displacement and Resettlement in the Narmada Valley''. Delhi: Oxford University Press. . * A. De and J Drèze. 1999. ''Public Report on Basic Education in India''. The PROBE report. Oxford University Press. * Drèze J. (ed.) 1999. ''The Economics of Famine''. International Library of Critical Writings in Economics. London: Edward Elgar Publishing. * Bhatia B, J. Drèze & K. Kelly. 2001. ''War and Peace in the Gulf: Testimonies of the Gulf Peace Team''. London: Spokesman Books. ublished on the tenth anniversary of the Team's attempt to stop the Gulf War through non-violent occupation * Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. 2002. ''India: Development and Participation''. Oxford University Press. * Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. 2013. ''An Uncertain Glory, India and Its Contradictions.'' Penguin. * Drèze J., 2017. ''Sense And Solidarity – Jholawala Economics for Everyone.'' Permanent Black. * Drèze J. and Nirali Bakhla, Reetika Khera and Vipul Paikra, 2021. ''Locked Out: Emergency Report on School Education''. Articles * 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. * 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''. * 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., M. Murthi and A-C. Guio. 1995. Mortality, Fertility and Gender Bias in India. ''Population and Development Review''. * Dreze, Jean and Naresh Sharma, 1996, "Sharecropping in a North Indian Village", ''Journal of Development Studies'', 33(1):1–40. * Drèze J. and P.V. Srinivasan. 1997. Widowhood and Poverty in Rural India. ''Journal of Development Economics''. * Drèze J. and Sen, A.K. (eds.) 1997. ''Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives''. Delhi: Oxford University Press. * 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. 1998. "Economic Development in Palanpur, 1957–93", chapter 2 in Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern, eds., Economic Development in Palanpur over Five Decades. 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. * Baland, J-M. Drèze J. and L. Leruth. 1999. ''Daily Wages and Piece Rates in Agrarian Economies''. Journal of Development Economics. * Drèze J. and R. Khera. 2000. Crime, Gender and Society in India. ''Population and Development Review''. * Drèze J. and G.G. Kingdon. 2001. . ''Review of Development Economics'' 5(1),1–24. * Drèze J. 2001. Fertility, Education and Development: Evidence from India. ''Population and Development Review''. * 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, 2, 37 March (9). New Delhi. * 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, Jean and Aparajita Goyal. 2003. Future of Mid-Day Meals. ''Economic and Political Weekly'', 1 November. * Drèze, Jean 2004. Democracy and the Right to Food. ''Economic and Political Weekly''. 1723–1731. * Deaton, Angus and Dreze, J. 2008. ''Nutrition in India: Facts and Interpretations * Drèze, Jean ''Democracy and Power: The Delhi Lectures'', Introduction by Jean Dreze
Democracy and Power, Introduction
* Drèze, Jean, and Khera, Reetika. 2017
Recent Social Security Initiatives in India
World Development.

References

External links

Jean Drèze
on TheHindu.com
Interview on India Together

Future of Mid-Day Meals.

Focus On Children Under Six, FOCUS Report
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dreze, Jean Living people 1959 births Belgian economists Right to Information activists Indian Statistical Institute alumni People from Leuven People who lost Belgian citizenship Belgian emigrants to India Indian people of Belgian descent Naturalised citizens of India Members of National Advisory Council, India Alumni of the University of Essex People from Ranchi Scientists from Jharkhand 20th-century squatters 20th-century Indian economists 20th-century Belgian economists