Walras and the French Engineers Economists

Abstract

The French engineers economists had read with many reserves the work of Walras. They did not think that the use of mathematics can constitute a normal method even in pure political economy. Gradually their reserves became blurred when they recognized the crucial role of the interdependence in the analysis of the economic phenomena. Then the theory of general equilibrium was the necessary reference. In this evolution, the publication in 1928 of L'economique rationnelle marks an important stage not only because Divisia proposes, in this work, a new version of the theory of general equilibrium but because he highlights the difficulties which raise Walras' analysis about the intertemporal choices and the determination of monetary prices. Allais proposed, in his Traite d'economie pure, a new model of general equilibrium based on these criticisms and on the analyses of Fisher and Pareto. He takes into account in a systematic way the temporal character of the economic phenomena. It is quite rightly that this model was to describe as neo-walrasien. It is well the model which Walras had worked out in the Elements d'economie politique pure that Allais is inspired by to build its own theory of the economic equilibrium