Maurice Allais, fighter against unquestioned truths

Abstract

The paper presents some less known theoretical views of the recently deceased Nobel laureate, Maurice Allais, which significantly diverge from certain 'unquestioned truths' of mainstream economics. Although a liberal and a cofounder of the Mont Pelerin Society, Allais was opposed to globalization and the simplified doctrine of free trade, and advocated reasonable protectionism. A convinced European and a proponent of European confederation, he was opposed to the Maastricht Treaty for its excessive emphasis on free trade. In his opinion, political union should precede economic integration. Finally, although a liberal and a monetarist, Allais did not believe in the self-regulating power of financial markets. He argued that radical reforms of the international financial and monetary system were necessary, by which the regulating mechanisms would be institutionalized. In 1988, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics 'for his pioneering contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of resources'.