Roland J. M. Bénabou

Roland J. M. Bénabou joined the Department in 2026 from Princeton University where he was the Theodore A. Wells '29 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs (Department of Economics and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs).  Among his numerous fellowships and honours, he is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Corresponding Member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Académiques (Institut de France). He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) as well as of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), a Senior Fellow of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and a member of the Russell Sage Behavioral Economics Roundtable. With respect to his editorial duties, he completed two terms as Co-Editor of the American Economic Review.

Roland J. M. Bénabou’s research spans both macroeconomic and microeconomic areas. His recent work lies in three main areas: 

• Behavioural Economics. This work focuses in particular on extrinsic incentives versus intrinsic motivation, on the determinants of prosocial behavior, on self-control and on motivated beliefs, both individual (overconfidence, wishful thinking, identity) and collective (groupthink, market manias, ideology, religion).
• Inequality, growth, social mobility and the political economy of redistribution. 
• Education, social interactions and the socioeconomic structure of cities. 

In 2021 the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) awarded Roland Bénabou the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize awarded to a "renowned international economist whose research, in the spirit of the work undertaken by Professor Jean-Jacques Laffont, combines both the theoretical and the empirical".

He holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and two engineering degrees from the École des Ponts et Chaussées and the École Polytechnique.

Roland J. M. Bénabou's website

Featured publications

• “Laws and Norms,’’ with Jean Tirole, Journal of Political Economy, 134 (2), February 2026, 731-772.
• "Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth", with Davide Ticchi and Andrea Vindigni, Review of Economic Studies, (2022) 89, 1785-1832.
• "Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets", Review of Economic Studies (2013) 80, 429-462.
• "Identity, Morals and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets," with Jean Tirole, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126, (2011), 805-855.
• "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior", with Jean Tirole, American Economic Review, 96(5), December (2006), 1652-1678.
• "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics" with Jean Tirole, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2), May 2006, 699-746.
• "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation" with Jean Tirole, Review of Economic Studies, 70(3) (2003), 489-520.
• "Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation" with Jean Tirole, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2002, 117(3), 871-915."
• "Tax and Education Policy in a Heterogeneous Agent Economy: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Growth and Efficiency?" Econometrica, 70(2), March 2002, 481-517. 
• "Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: The POUM Hypothesis" with Efe Ok, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(2), May 2001, 447-487.
• "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract" American Economic Review, 90, March 2000, 96-129. 
•  "Workings of a City: Location, Education, and Production" Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108, (1993), 619-652.