Born in Lyon on December 19, 1903. Died in 1987.
Education and professional career
- Secondary studies with the Marist Fathers (Lyon)
 - 1926: University lecturer
 - 1927: Lecturer
 - 1928: Agrégé
 - 1928-1937: Professor of Political Economy at the University (Lyon)
 - 1937-1955: Professor, University of Paris
 - 1946-1952: Professor, Institut d'études politiques (Paris)
 - 1944: Founder and Chairman of the Institut de science économique appliquée (I.S.E.A.), now the Institut de sciences mathématiques et économiques appliquées
 - 1955: Director of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
 - 1955-1976: Professor at the Collège de France, chair of analysis of economic and social facts
 - 1960-1969: Director of the Institute for Economic and Social Studies and Development
 - 1960: Member of the Economic and Social Council, France
 - 1961: Founder of the Dakar Institute of Economics.
 - 1945: Mission for the French government: to study methods of calculating national income in Great Britain (with Pierre Uri and Henri Bartoli)
 - Member of the Executive Committee of theInternational Association for Research in Income and Wealth
 - 1946: Member of the International Statistical Institute
 
Academies
- Associate member of the British Academy. Foreign member of the Accademia di Lincei, Roma
 - Associate member of the Académie royale des Sciences et des Lettres (Brussels)
 - Foreign member of the Royal Academy of Economic Sciences (Barcelona)
 
Awards and honors
- Commander of the Légion d'Honneur
 - Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit
 - Croix de guerre 1939-1940
 - Commander of the Hellenic Order of the Greek Republic
 - Grand Officer of the Aztec Order
 - Officer of the Order of the Crown (Belgium)
 - Commander of the Order of the Italian Republic
 - Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great
 - Grand Officer of the Order of Senegal
 - Honorary doctorate: Liège, Frankfurt am Main, Barcelona, Bucharest
 - Doctor honoris causa or professor honoris causa: Santiago (Chile), Lima (Peru), Corboda (Argentina), Montevido (Uruguay), Sao Paulo (Brazil)