Abstract
Our problem is related to the inability of standard equilibrium theory to explain present time economic relations both in a closed and open economy. Therefore, another general interpretation of economic life is wanted. After recalling some very well known phenomena incompatible with perfect competition, we emphasize two features of international life : 1) the relative weight of large firms in international trade, 2) the “nationality effect” underlined by P. J. Buckley, J. H. Dunning and R. D. Pearce in a recent article where, in a statistical analysis of the 642 largest firms in the world, they find that nationality is correlated with profit rate. Is this because of the excellency of investors’ choice or because of economic and social externalities in a given national space ? The incompatibility of monopolistic and oligopolistic competi¬ tion with a theory of general equilibrium is currently admitted. We believe the new theory of the active units (Les Unités actives, unités actives et mathématiques nouvelles, François Perroux, Dunod, 1975) should be taken into account. Active units are capable to modify their environment at their own advantage. They engender their economic spaces (trade, investment, information). Such economic spaces are eventually to be applied to territorial spaces. The method allows a new analysis of economic asymétries related to : a) the irreversibility of time and b) the unequalities of economic agents and units. The growing interest for structural models (J. N. Bhagwati) is connected to the importance, of fixed capital and to the complexity of organizations in industrialized economies. Numerous applications are drawn from the analysis : -in the short-run the propulsion effect of large and strong economic structures, — in the middle-run, the structural ascen¬ dencies, — and finally, the complex set of dominances by the super-powers. The standard theory seems to improve if one puts it into the frame of an integrative theory of general equilibrium.
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