Ceremony to Confer the Honorary Degree of Doctor upon Professor Jean-Michel Grandmont and Commemorative Lecture Held at Keio University

The Ceremony to confer the Honorary Degree of Doctor upon Professor Jean-Michel Grandmont of CREST (Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistiques) was held on 25 October at the Public Speaking Hall of Mita Campus. The ceremony, presided by Professor Sahoko Kaji of the Faculty of Economics, proceeded with citation by Professor Shuhei Shiozawa, Dean of the Faculty of Economics. President Yuichiro Anzai conferred the Diploma and delivered a speech. Professor Kazuo Nishimura of Kyoto University and Professor Emeritus Kunio Kawamata each delivered a congratulatory address, followed by an Acceptance Statement by Professor Jean-Michel Grandmont.

Prof. Grandmont was born in 1939 in Toulouse, France, and after graduating from the University of Paris in 1961; he studied at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. He returned to France and served as a research associate at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and CEPREMAP (Centre d’Études Prospectives d’Économie Mathématique Appliquées à la Plantification), and today, serves as a Research Director at CREST (Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique). He contributed to the introduction of time and expectation formation under uncertainty into the general equilibrium theory and has clarified the role of money and the mechanism of economic fluctuations. He has visited Keio University several times in the past and has inspired many young researchers of economic theory and graduate students.

After the ceremony, a commemorative lecture was delivered by Prof. Grandmont at the North Building Hall of Mita Campus. The lecture entitled “Redistributive Taxation and Income Inequality” was held also as the 6th Public Lecture of “Chaire Louis Vuitton Japan” which was established in 2006 in collaboration with Louis Vuitton Japan, he Cultural Counsel of the French Embassy in Japan, and Keio University. The Graduate School of Law, the Graduate School of Business and Commerce and the Graduate School of Human Relations have hosted the program so far; and the Graduate School of Economics has done the last one, inviting a renowned economist, Prof. Grandmont. Around 100 people including researchers, students and others from the public attended.