Abstract
__kindeditor_temp_url__If the history of macroeconomics is still largely associated with John Maynard Keynes’ masterpiece, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes, 1936), macronomics also includes a branch of economics which has gained recognition through the use of mathematical models, the notion of general equilibrium, the development of an empirical basis (applied economics), and the evaluation of the effects of economic policy. These elements of macroeconomic theory are found in Maurice Allais’ work, mainly his Théorie du rendement social (Allais, 1946) and his Fondements comptables de la macroéconomie (Allais, 1954). In the aftermath of the Second World War, Allais was able to use a corpus composed of a theory—the Walrasian General Equilibrium, a doctrine—competitive planning, an empirical basis—his work on national accounting and economic policy prescriptions, “la planification à la francaise” and monetary dynamics. This work, combined with the development of national statistics and national accounting, highlights the French tradition of economic thinking and reminds us, that in the history of economic thought, the Keynesian precepts took some time to “colonize” the minds of French economists.
Highlights
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Allais was able to use a corpus composed of a theory—the Walrasian General Equilibrium, a doctrine—competitive planning, an empirical basis—his work on national accounting and economic policy prescriptions, “la planification à la française” and monetary dynamics
The study aims “to establish in a rigorous and synthetic way, based on the summation of the accounts of the various economic agents, consumers, companies, credit banks, issuing institutions and the State, the main accounting relationships that necessarily exist between the global quantities usually considered and to try to show the multiple applications of these relationships, including accounting theory, national income theory, currency and credit theory, capital and income theory, dimensional economic analysis theory, savings and investment theory, inflationary profit theory and economic dynamics theory” (Allais, 1954: p. 1)
While macroeconomics is often linked to John Maynard Keynes’ work and his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes, 1936) it should be recalled that the period after World War II was marked by the memory of the crisis of the 1930s and the depression that followed
Summary
In an article published in December 2005 entitled The Theory and the Modelling of Macroeconomics, from yesterday to today, Michel de Vroey and Pierre Malgrange (2005) sought to track the evolution of macroeconomics from its birth. Diemer (in the 1930s) to the 21st Century In their view, the notion of macroeconomics should cover the following conditions: “First, it is a modelled discipline, i.e. composed of mathematical models. As a result of this definition, the authors proposed a narrow and linear history of macroeconomics It began with Keynes’ masterpiece, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes, 1936). In his Introduction to Keynesian thought, Hansen (1967) recalls that “the literature of the years 1900 to 1936 saw many efforts, sometimes important, but often radically insufficient, to break the orthodoxy [Say’s Law] of automatic adjustment”. In other words, defining a family tree of macroeconomics based on Keynesian theory risks excluding from the study all original or incremental contributions which
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