Alain Lipietz was raised in Paris in a middle class, Leftist family. His mother was French and his father was a Jewish Pole, who had fled antisemitism in Poland at the age of two and arrived in France in 1924. They had three children. Lipietz was a precocious child, winning a prize at the age of 15 for public speaking. He studied at the exclusive École polytechnique as an engineer (entered in 1966) and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (diploma in 1971). He had participated in the May '68 protests in Paris, and seen the plight of miners in the north of France, prompting him to study economics, obtaining a Masters from the Sorbonne in 1972.
From 1971–1973 he was a researcher in economics at the Institut de recherche des transports (The French transportation research institute) and then from 1973–1999 at the Centre d'études prospectives d'économie – Mathématiques appliquées à la planification (Center for prospective studies of economics – applied mathematics for planning). He became a research director at CNRS from 1988-2002. In 1990 he became chief engineer at the Corps of Bridges and Roads (France), and taught at various Paris universities over the course of his career.
Despite his interests in regional planning and economics, since the beginning of his career he also devoted himself to the analysis of social and environmental issues. In particular he contributed to the Regulation school of economic thought, as well as environmental theory and policy.

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