Gael Giraud (Gaël Giraud), né à Paris en 1970, est un économiste français, directeur de recherche au CNRS. Normalien et mathématicien, il a été chef économiste de l’Agence française de développement, puis professeur à l’université de Georgetown à Washington. Ses travaux portent sur la macroéconomie du climat, la dette et la monnaie, l’énergie et les biens communs. La biographie complète de Gael Giraud est disponible en français sur son site officiel.
Gael Giraud (Gaël Giraud) is a French economist and research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), affiliated with the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire des énergies de demain (LIED, Université Paris Cité). His research bridges macroeconomics, finance, energy and climate science.
After preparatory classes at the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, Gael Giraud studied at the École normale supérieure (rue d’Ulm) and graduated from ENSAE. He received a PhD in applied mathematics in 1998 for a thesis on strategic market games, prepared at the econometrics laboratory of the École polytechnique, followed by a postdoctoral position at CORE (Université catholique de Louvain). He obtained his habilitation to supervise research in 2004, and a doctorate in theology from the Facultés jésuites de Paris in 2020.
Gael Giraud joined the CNRS in 1999. From 2011 to 2013 he headed the finance research department of the Centre d’économie de la Sorbonne. In 2015 he founded the Energy and Prosperity Chair, under the aegis of the École normale supérieure, the École polytechnique and ENSAE. He was an associate researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Nantes (2016-2022). In 2020 he founded the environmental justice programme of Georgetown University in Washington, which he directed until 2023, and taught at the McCourt School of Public Policy (2021-2023). He has supervised sixteen doctoral theses.
From 2015 to 2019, Gael Giraud was chief economist of the Agence française de développement (AFD) and executive director of its Innovation, Research and Knowledge department, leading a team of 115 people. There he developed the Gemmes macroeconomic model and brought the notion of “global commons” into the debate on development aid. He served on the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices chaired by Nicholas Stern and Joseph Stiglitz (2016-2017). At Georgetown, his programme worked with the South African Treasury on the phase-out of coal.
He has taught economics, mathematics and theology at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Sciences Po, the École polytechnique, the École des Ponts ParisTech, the Université catholique de Louvain, Vietnam National University in Hanoi, Stellenbosch University in South Africa and the Facultés jésuites de Paris.
Doctor honoris causa, University of Namur (2021)
Grand Prix “Humanisme et Société”, awarded at the French National Assembly (2016)
Biella Prize and “Make the Peace” Prize of the University of Bergamo (2016), for the Italian edition of Illusion financière
High school students’ prize of the French Ministry of the Economy (2013), for Illusion financière
Nominated for the Best Young Economist Prize (2009)
1970 — born in Paris
1989-1993 — École normale supérieure; ENSAE
1995-1997 — teaches mathematics and physics in Sarh, Chad, and founds a shelter for street children in Balimba
1998 — PhD in applied mathematics; postdoc at CORE, Louvain
1999 — joins the CNRS
2012 — Illusion financière
2015-2019 — chief economist of the Agence française de développement
2016-2017 — Stern-Stiglitz Commission on Carbon Prices
2020-2023 — Georgetown University
2021 — Doctor honoris causa, University of Namur
2024 — The Taste of Change, with Carlo Petrini (Georgetown University Press)
Beyond economics, Gael Giraud is a pianist, a playwright, a mountaineer and a ski tourer. He speaks French, English, German, Italian and Spanish.
See also: Gael Giraud – Research · English biography on the official website · CV of Gael Giraud