It was founded in 2006 as a coalition of universities and grandes écoles to unify high-level research in economics across French academia, and was first presided by economist Thomas Piketty.

[2] Created in December 2006, the Paris School of Economics has the status of fondation reconnue d’utilité publique (a Public interest foundation).

Its contributory economics faculties, including the Ecole Normale Superieure, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, the Ecole Polytechnique and ENSAE, are ranked between the top 13 among 53 departments worldwide by publication output of the top five scholars.

[8] It is also member of many exchange networks : The World Inequality Report 2018 compiled by Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chanel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman[9] was released on 14 December 2017 at the Paris School of Economics during the first WID.world Conference held on 14 December and 15 December, which was sponsored by the Paris School of Economics, the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), the Washington Center for Equitable Growth (CEG), the Ford Foundation, and the European Research Council.

The WID is an extension of the earlier World Top Incomes Database (WTID).