(Finance) – TheFrench economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi. 79 years old, born in Tunisia, he was professor of SciencesPo, of which he had created the Department of Economics, professor at Luiss in Rome and member of the Center for Capitalism and Society of Columbia University. Always critic of the rigidity of budgetary policies and monetary economicsdue to the negative effects on economic growth and employment levels, between 2008 and 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, participated with twenty-two international experts in the work of the commission which had the ambitious goal of reaching a new measure of economic performance.
“Jean Paul was a Keynesian economist and he believed that the task of economic policy was to support demand to ensure full employment, but also to fight poverty and exclusion “, recalled friends and professors Marcello Messori, Stefano Micossi and Romano Prodi. “This did not stop him from writing with Edmund Phelps, Nobel laureate in economics in 2006, influential essays on unemployment and low growth in Europe – they explained – Together with Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, other Nobel laureates for economics. (in 1998 and 2001 respectively), launched an ambitious international program for the reformulation of national accounting statistics which took into account inequality and well-being“.
Fitoussi has always been very attached to Italy. In addition to being a professor at the Luiss in Rome, he also spent a long period in Florence, at the Institute of European Studies in Fiesole. In addition, he held a position on the Telecom Italia board of directors from 2004 to 2017 and on the supervisory board of Banca Intesa Sanpaolo. He was also Commander of Merit of the Italian Republic.
“Faith in a federal and supportive Europe, criticism of budgetary policies based on rigid parameters, support for expansionary measures as an engine for growth and an anti-inequality tool, the never banal analysis of the crisis of liberal democracies. With Jean -Paul Fitoussi is leaving today not only a lively and courageous economist, professor emeritus at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and professor at Luiss, but a friend of many battles and of Italy“, was the memory of Renato Brunetta, Minister for Public Administration. “I learn with emotion and sadness the news of the death of Professor Jean-Paul Fitoussi, great economist of Science Po. A pillar. A friend. To whom I owe so much “, were the words of the secretary of the PD Enrico Letta.