Edmond Baranes: In the Spotlight of the Digital Age

When Edmond Baranes began his dissertation at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne on the economics of telecommunications networks and services in the early 1990s, he could not have foreseen that his field of study would undergo such major upheavals. The professor of economics at the University of Montpellier has had a front-row seat to a landscape upended by the arrival of the Internet, then restructured around global economic giants like Google and Microsoft.“I’ve always been surprised by the speed of change in this sector, by how quickly players adapt, and by how quickly users embrace new services. Today, with generative AI, I feel like things are accelerating even further,” the researcher notes.

"Very forceful reports"

He focuses on digital markets, whose transformations have“raised numerous questions for economic analysis.” He thus examines France Télécom’s rebranding as Orange, the opening of the market to competition, the golden age of telecom operators, and the rise of digital content providers—the GAFAM companies, now known as MAMAA (Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Alphabet). The economist studies the relationships between operators and providers, relationships that have become asymmetrical in the face of the new digital giants.“By basing their business model on data, providers need more and more bandwidth; it’s up to operators to keep up and invest accordingly in networks, with no guarantee of a return on investment. “I participated in discussions in Brussels, where I witnessed very tense exchanges,” notes Edmond Baranes, who also observes the lobbying efforts of these private actors: “They now influence market operations and national and European policies to an extent never seen before.”

After arriving in Montpellier in 2001, following a professorship at the University of Artois, Edmond Baranes developed a second line of research in energy economics. Today, he also focuses on energy consumption in the digital sector. The data economy is indeed one of the drivers behind the digital sector’s energy appetite, as processing ever-larger volumes of data requires an increase in the number of processors and data centers, whose operations drive up the sector’s energy consumption.“And the rise of AI is further accelerating this ecological footprint,” notes the researcher at Montpellier Research in Economics (MRE), adding , “at the same time, AI can contribute to the ecological transition.”

Data economic models

For the past two years, Edmond Baranes has been developing a third area of expertise—economic models for data, particularly geolocation data—in his capacity as chair of the “Economic Models” committee of the National Committee for Geolocation Information (CNIG), which reports to the minister responsible for sustainable development. Since June 3, 2024, he has also assumed the role of dean of the Faculty of Economics. Newly elected, Baranes—who has served as vice dean alongside François Mirabel since 2019—acknowledges that the task is not entirely new to him. This new five-year term“will build on my previous work, particularly regarding socio-economic partnerships for vocational training,”he explains. Work-study programs were already introduced at the start of the 2023 academic year in two master’s programs: “Digital Economy” and “Energy Economics.”

The goal is to expand the range of programs available through work-study programs, particularly starting in the third year of a bachelor’s degree.“This move toward professionalization starting in the bachelor’s degree program is a demand that comes primarily from academic advisory boards, where some students wish to enter the job market after completing their first three years of college.” In discussions with socio-economic partners, they also see value in hiring young economists well-versed in data processing and digital tools, capable of conducting analyses on investment projects, for example.” It now falls to Edmond Baranes to get all his colleagues on board, some of whom may be reluctant, particularly given the complexity of managing these dual-track programs. The internationalization of programs is also a key focus of his commitment to the Faculty of Economics; he aims to make it a priority and explore the implementation of dual degree programs in collaboration with the University of Montpellier’s strategic partners“to offer our students an international academic and professional perspective,” he concludes.