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Last summer, while attending the Stanford economics department’s annual conference known as SITE, Adrien Auclert met a member of a group of economists advising leaders in France on policy matters. The two got to talking about the French government’s need for an expert on macroeconomics.

Fast forward to early May, when the French government Auclert, an assistant professor of economics in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, to French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s Economic Analysis Council — which is similar to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

studies macroeconomics, inequality, and international economics.

In his new advisory role, Auclert will weigh in on macroeconomic issues as requested by the prime minister. Already, he is co-authoring an analysis of France’s fiscal health, which has deteriorated amid the pandemic, an energy crisis, and other setbacks.

Auclert, who was born and raised in Paris, will remain at Stanford while serving his term on the council, which is expected to last at least two years.

“I am very excited to be helping my country, and at the highest level that an academic can, which is by supporting policymakers directly,” said Auclert. He is also a faculty fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Faculty Scholar at the School of Humanities and Sciences.

“Anytime there’s something that the government really wants to know about, and where your economics expertise can be useful, is a great opportunity,” Auclert said.

Through his research and teaching, Auclert is at the forefront of advances in the study of economics — notably a new modeling approach known as HANK, or Heterogeneous Agent New Keynesian, that its proponents say yields a more reliable understanding of how the economy works. At its core, the theory recognizes that populations comprise diverse groups of individuals with distinct characteristics and behaviors — and are not, as traditional economics assumes, made up of a single “representative agent” who is rational and fully informed.

Using HANK models, Auclert and his co-authors have shed new light on, for example, how government stimulus to poor households might exacerbate income inequality and how energy shocks .

Auclert has been a Stanford faculty member since 2016 and, before that, taught at Princeton. He earned a PhD in economics from MIT in 2015. He also holds a masters in econometrics and mathematical economics from the London School of Business, awarded in 2009. Auclert also worked as an economist at the Bank of England from 2009 until 2010.

Among his many other achievements, Auclert served as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow from 2022 until this year. His awards include MIT’s Robert M. Solow Prize for Excellence in Teaching and Research, awarded in 2015.