[1] Trained at the École Polytechnique and at the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (ENSAE) in Paris, Malinvaud was a student of Maurice Allais.

In 1950, Malinvaud left Allais to join the Cowles Commission in the United States.

His famous article, "Capital Accumulation and the Efficient Allocation of Resources" (1953), provided an intertemporal theory of capital for general equilibrium theory and introduced the concept of dynamic efficiency.

Malinvaud's main contribution to macroeconomics is represented in his slim 1977 book, Theory of Unemployment Reconsidered which provided a clear and unified reconstruction of dynamic "disequilibrium" macroeconomics; this theory built on previous results of Clower, Leijonhufvud, and "Non-Walrasian" theory.

Malinvaud's influence on the subsequent generation of European economists has been profound.