The Gérard-Parizeau Award and the accompanying $30,000 bursary, in recognition of excellence in the insurance field, was presented yesterday to Professor Georges Dionne, holder of the Risk Management Chair at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, Director of the Assurances journal and Associate Researcher with the Centre for Research on Transportation.
Professor Dionne is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, and an internationally renowned researcher in risk economics and insurance. In fact, he was the first to apply concepts and models from the information economy and contracts to insurance data. Many of the insurance textbooks he has authored have become classics in the field. His recent work, the Handbook of Insurance, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston), earned him the 2001 Risques–Les Échos special award and the François-Albert Angers 2001 award (tie) for the best academic work published at the HEC.
On the international scene, Georges Dionne is President of the Risk Theory Society of the American Risk and Insurance Association and an Associate Researcher with the Chaire d'économie d'assurance of Université Paris X-Nanterre. He is also a member of the scientific committee for five prestigious journals, including Annales d'Économie et de Statistiques (France) and the Journal of Risk and Insurance (United States). In Canada, he is Editor of the “Société canadienne de science économique” collection and Secretary Treasurer of the Society. His work has won him many distinctions, including the Marcel-Vincent award in social sciences from the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS).
The Gérard-Parizeau award and the lectures of the same name were founded in 2000 thanks to the establishment of the Gérard-Parizeau fund, dedicated to the memory of this dominant figure in Quebec’s insurance industry and avid historian. The award goes to a leading figure in the insurance field in one year, and a leader in the field of history in the next. The lectures are organized in turn by HEC (insurance) and the Université de Montréal (history). Gérard Parizeau’s son, Jacques Parizeau, presided at the award ceremony this year. For more information on the Gérard-Parizeau Fund, consult www.hec.ca/fonds.gerard-parizeau.
