2014年经济学人 法国经济学家 图卢兹VS巴黎（在线收听）

French economists

Toulouse v Paris

A tale of two French economists and their rival schools

IF PHILOSOPHERS in France are national treasures, economists are dreary specimens. But the discipline has some new star dust. One French economist, Jean Tirole, won the Nobel prize for economics. Another, Thomas Piketty, brought in rock-star quality when his book, “Capital”, became a bestseller in English. When the IMF recently listed the world's 25 best young economists, seven (including Mr Piketty) were French.

An economist from Toulouse

What explains this resurgence? One answer is the rivalry of two institutions that have tried to defy the fragmented and divided world of French higher education: the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) and the Paris School of Economics (PSE). Each has rebranded itself with an English name, created a private fund-raising foundation, recruited worldwide, and introduced English as the teaching language. Each has a claim to excellence: PSE (where Mr Piketty is a professor) ranks seventh among economics departments worldwide, and TSE (chaired by Mr Tirole) is 11th, according to the RePEc ranking used by economists.

The two have chosen different paths. As part of a university, TSE is more recognisably a campus and teaches undergraduates (it cannot select them until the third year), while most of its postgraduates are foreign. The school's strengths are industrial economics, market regulation and economic theory. By contrast, PSE groups various grandes écoles, the selective elite top crust of French higher education, does not have a single campus (work on a new site is due to finish in 2016), and accepts only graduates. Besides economic theory, its research expertise is in public economics and statistics.

As a university, Toulouse has suffered in France from a sort of academic second-cousin syndrome. But the Nobel has put an end to that. A vast portrait of the modest Mr Tirole was strung across Toulouse's town hall. His students printed T-shirts to celebrate his triumph. Rivalry between the two schools is no bad thing. “As an economist, I like competition,” says Christian Gollier, TSE's director. “There is room for more than one prestigious economics department in France.”

More than anything, TSE and PSE show how to get around rules. French higher education divides universities (non-selective) from grandes écoles(highly competitive); encourages uniformity (university lecturers are civil servants); and forbids university tuition fees. “The French system is crippled by rigidities,” notes Pierre-Yves Geoffard, PSE's director. “But these prompt new ideas, as a way of working around the system .”