June 15th 2015

Andreu Mas-Colell, Professor of the Department of Economics and Business at Pompeu Fabra University, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Chicago on June 13, during the 523rd graduation ceremony of this university.

Presenting the award to Professor Mas-Colell was Hugo Sonnenschein, President Emeritus of the University of Chicago and Chairman of the Barcelona GSE Scientific Council. Andreu Mas-Colell is one of the four distinguished scholars honored with the distinction of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Chicago. The other honoris causa recipients this year are all top scholars working at institutions in the United States: glaciologist Richard B. Alley (Pennsylvania State University), cancer researcher Titia de Lange (Rockefeller University), and mathematician Peter Sarnak (Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton).

Andreu Mas-Colell (Barcelona 1944) was Professor of Economics at Harvard University (1981-96), Professor of Economics and Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley (1972-80) and Chairman of the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (2006-2010). He has served as main Editor of the Journal of Mathematical Economics (1985-88), and of Econometrica (1988-92). He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and was its President in 1993. In 1997 he was elected Foreign Associate to the US National Academy of Sciences and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association. He has been a Sloan Fellow (1978-1980) and Guggenheim Fellow (1985-1986). Also from 1999 to 2005 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association. In the year 2006 he served as President of the European Economic Association. From 2000 to 2003 he was Minister for Universities and Research of the Government of Catalonia and President of the Advisory Scientific Committee of Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo (2005-2008). He has been General Secretary of the European Research Council from July 2009 to August 2010. At present he is Minister of Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia (from December 2010).

Andreu Mas-Colell has written some 100 research papers on subjects ranging from abstract general equilibrium theory and the structure of financial markets to pricing policy for public firms. He is the author of "The Theory of General Economic Equilibrium: A Differentiable Approach" (Cambridge University Press, 1985) and co-author with M. Whinston and J. Green, of the graduate textbook "Microeconomic Theory" (Oxford University Press, 1994). He has received the Rey Juan Carlos Prize in Economics (1988), the Pascual Madoz (National Research Prize), (2006) and the Premio Fundación BBVA Fronteras del Conocimiento en Economía, Finanzas y Gestión de Empresas –shared with Hugo Sonnenschein- (2009). He holds Honoris Causa Doctorates from the universities of Alacant, Toulouse, HEC (Paris) and Universidad Nacional del Sur (Argentina).