Maxence Dutilleul
PhD Candidate
Maxence Dutilleul is a graduate of the École normale supérieure (ENS) Paris-Saclay (class of 2023) and earned a master’s degree in Economic and Social Sciences from Université Paris-Dauphine, EHESS, and MINES ParisTech (class of 2022). Before that, he completed a dual undergraduate degree in Sociology and Economics at ENS Paris-Saclay and Sorbonne University. In 2022-2023, he was a pre-doctoral visiting researcher at the University of Edinburgh, where he worked on macroeconomic forecasting. His research focuses on economic sociology and political economy.
Research Work
Maxence Dutilleul is currently pursuing a PhD in historical and comparative sociology on the issue of housing affordability, analyzing cases in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
His research follows two complementary lines of inquiry.
First, he examines the lack of regulation in real estate pricing: Why, despite the central role of housing in household expenditures and its impact on purchasing power, do governments struggle to curb rising prices? Why, even as household debt becomes an increasing concern, do certain public policies encourage mortgage borrowing?
Second, he investigates debates surrounding the economic status of owner-occupied housing: Should housing be considered a capital investment or a form of consumption? By tracing historical controversies over how housing is accounted for in national statistics, he highlights how the notion of homeownership as a productive asset became dominant, while the perspective of housing as consumption was progressively marginalized. He ultimately demonstrates how these representations align with the political formalization of homeowners’ interests and how they shape both the capacity of actors to frame housing affordability as a policy issue and the broader division of labor in economic policymaking.
His previous research has explored the use of economic science by central banks and the history of research studies at the Banque de France. Alongside his doctoral work, he continues a research program initiated in 2020 on the historical controversies surrounding the West African Monetary Union (CFA franc) and the Franc Zone.
Publications
Chalet L., Dutilleul M., Fages V., Gayoso E., “Des visières à haut débit : un regard sociologique sur la mobilisation des makers face à la crise sanitaire”, Enjeux numériques, Annales des Mines, juin 2021.
“To make systems virtual is a tour de force of material configuration”, Interview with Professor Donald MacKenzie, SKAPE, November 2022.
Conferences
2023 Congress of Association Française de Sociologie, RT 12 Sociologie économique, Lyon : « Cartographie d'une configuration savoir-pouvoir : les chercheurs de la Banque Centrale Européenne ».
European Society for the History of Science conference on Science Policy and the Politics of Science, Brussels 2022, special sessions “The Scientization of Central Banks”: “The Banque de France as a power-knowledge configuration: socio-historical case study of a ‘scientized’ central bank”.
Seminar “Valeur, prix, politique” (IDHES, 11 février 2021): “Les makers pendant la crise sanitaire, un commerce hors marché: de l’organisation de la solidarité à l’épreuve de la certification” (with Chalet Léo, Fages Vony, Gayoso Emile).
Prizes and awards
2nd prize, Sociology and Economics, Concours Général, 2017
Research Topics
Economic sociology, Sociology of public policy, Historical and comparative sociology, Quantification, Housing, Capital, Currency