Michel TERRAZA

1948–2020

Michel Terraza was well-respected and deeply involved in the life of the Faculty of Economics. After earning his doctorate in economics in 1981 under the supervision of Professor Jean-Pierre Vignau, Michel Terraza became an assistant professor in 1983 before joining the faculty of associate professors at the Faculty of Economics in Montpellier in 1985. In 1995, he passed the competitive examination for university professor and joined the University of Perpignan, where he became director of the Department of Economics and vice-dean of the Faculty of Law. In 1999, he transferred to the Faculty of Economics at the University of Montpellier, where he remained until his retirement in 2017.He held numerous administrative responsibilities, reflecting his deep commitment to the academic community. At ISEM, he served on the board of directors, led the IUP in Commerce and Sales for seven years, and subsequently directed the Master’s program in Customer Relationship Engineering for over ten years. At the Faculty of Economics, he headed the Master’s program in Market Risk Analysis from 2008 to 2017 and was active in several scientific institutions, including the Association of Applied Econometrics, the Vineyard Data Quantification Society, the French Statistical Society, the French Wine Market Observatory, and the French Finance Association…Michel Terraza was a teacher-researcher respected by all. A member of the CEPE (Center for Econometrics for Business), which he founded, and later of the LAMTA (which became the LAMETA), he subsequently joined the MRE. He contributed significantly to the growth of econometrics within the Faculty of Economics and successfully passed on his passion for statistical methods to generations of students. His book on time-series econometrics, written in collaboration with Régis Bourbonnais, remains a standard work in the field. His rigor, intellectual rigor, attentive listening, and his human and pedagogical qualities were highly valued by both his students and his colleagues.A researcher passionate about financial econometrics, agricultural market analysis, and the measurement of wage inequality, he leaves behind a substantial body of scientific work comprising 120 publications. He supervised the research of more than 30 doctoral students, many of whom went on to become faculty members themselves, and served on numerous thesis and habilitation committees. His proactive role in organizing numerous conferences, both in France and abroad, helped forge ties with many universities, such as in Spain with Professors X. Litago and L. Judez of the Institute of Agricultural Engineers, or in Italy and the United States with Professors Camilo Dagum and Walter Labys, whom he sponsored respectively for their honorary doctorate degrees. 

• Professor Emeritus

RESEARCH AREAS

• Econometric Methods