Laffont taught at the École Polytechnique (1975–1987), and was Professor of Economics at Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (1980–2004) and at the University of Toulouse I (1991–2001).
From 2001 until his death, he was the inaugural holder of the University of Southern California's John Elliott Chair in Economics.
[1] Had he lived, he might well have shared the 2014 Nobel Prize for Economics awarded to his colleague and collaborator Jean Tirole.
Jean-Jacques Laffont was diagnosed with cancer in autumn 2002 and died of the disease at his home in Colomiers in the Haute Garonne region of southern France on May 1, 2004.
He was survived by his wife, Colette; his daughters Cécile, Bénédicte and Charlotte; and his son, Bertrand.