French Economic Research Articles

Comment and Debate French Steel and the Metal-Working Industries: A Contribution to Debate on Economic Development in Nineteenth-Century France

This article addresses recent revisionist literature concerning nineteenth-century French economic history, and in particular Cameron’s and Freedeman’s “French Economic Growth; a Radical Revision” (1983, see also Roehl, 1976 and O’Brien and Keyder, 1978 and the critical response of Locke, 1981 and Crafts, 1984). It questions the latter’s criteria for the perception of economic development or retardation and challenges revisionist affirmations concerning the role of entrepreneurial attitudes in the achievement of industrialization in France. The problems raised by the revisionist interpretation appear clearly with respect to the history of the French steel industry. The principal steel producers’ dynamism and technically progressive attitudes, which the authors cite to demonstrate the irrelevance of sociocultural hypotheses concerning French industrial retardation, represented only one component of the ferrous industrial scene. Sociocultural factors beyond the steel firms’ control, together with poor financial conditions and the economic geography of France outweighed entrepreneurial dynamism as determinants of the industry’s overall performance in the later nineteenth century, chiefly by their inhibiting effect on per capita steel consumption.

French Steel and the Metal-Working Industries: A Contribution to Debate on Economic Development in Nineteenth-Century France

ing nineteenth-century economic history, and in particular Cameron's and Freedeman's French Economic Growth; a Radical Revision (1983, see also Roehl, 1976 and O'Brien and Keyder, 1978 and the critical response of Locke, 1981 and Crafts, 1984). It questions the latter's criteria for the perception of economic development or retardation and challenges revisionist affirmations concerning the role of entrepreneurial attitudes in the achievement of industrialization in France. The problems raised by the revisionist interpretation appear clearly with respect to the history of the steel industry. The principal steel producers' dynamism and technically progressive attitudes, which the authors cite to demonstrate the irrelevance of sociocultural hypotheses concerning industrial retardation, represented only one component of the ferrous industrial scene. Sociocultural factors beyond the steel firms' control, together with poor financial conditions and the economic geography of France outweighed entrepreneurial dynamism as determinants of the industry's overall performance in the later nineteenth century, chiefly by their inhibiting effect on per capita steel consumption.

French Economic Policies under the Socialist Government : Year III

In « The First Year of Socialist Government in France », we described the structural changes that followed the victory of the left in the French presidential and parliamentary elections. We also examined the macroeconomic imbalances created by an expansionist policy that involved increases in wages, in social benefits, and in public expenditures.

French Economic Growth: A Radical Revision

History is full of reactions and revolutions from which even the scholarly world is not immune. The revision in French economic history during the last two decades affords an example of one of the most complete turnabouts in recent scholarship. In the 1940s and 1950s a number of scholars, mainly American, believed that the problem to be explained was French economic retardation in the nineteenth century. Much was written about the unenterprising character of French entrepreneurs, anticapitalist social attitudes, the persistence of the family firm and the small farm, and other sociocultural characteristics that were deemed inimical to economic growth. The Research Center in Entrepreneurial History at Harvard (1948-1958) provided inspiration for analysing French entrepreneurial failure in terms of Parsonian sociology, and the classic retardationist view of French industrial development remains enshrined in David S. Landes’sThe Unbound Prometheus(1969), originally written during the 1950s for theCambridge Economic History of Europe.

French Economic Growth: A Radical Revision

French Economic Growth: A Radical Revision

Informed Bewilderment : French Economic Strategy and the Crisis

Crisis is a bumptious word, and political-economists, psychologists and French journalists - the three professional groups who seem to use it so often - have not done much to help it achieve acceptance in more dignified circles. Still, crises do happen.

The French Economic Interests in the Ottoman Empire

French economic development under the July Monarchy led the class that most benefited by it, the bourgeoisie, to demand increased political power. It was in the interest of the new regime of 1852, whose establishment was made possible by the support of the bourgeoisie, to favor the investment of capital acquired by its supporters, and to find new outlets abroad for the goods produced at an ever growing rate by France's new factories.

The French Economic Miracle: What a Difference Leadership Makes

The French Economic Miracle: What a Difference Leadership Makes

French Economic and Social History from the Revolution to the 1880s

French Economic and Social History from the Revolution to the 1880s

French Economic Stagnation, 1700-1960: Old Economic History Revisited

French Economic Stagnation, 1700-1960: Old Economic History Revisited Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Commons form the nucleus of the growing fraternity of scholars who have compelled their contemporaries to consider the importance of institutions in the chronology of events. Many of the most provocative economic and political theories have emerged from this fecund area. Although economic historians have always been in a particularly advantageous position to evaluate and reformulate institutionalist hypotheses, the most recent generation has largely defined the study of institutions out of their purview. Goodrich felt compelled to remark to his younger colleagues, If the study of major economic changes, and their analysis in terms of institutional factors, are not the central business of economic history, it is hard to see what our business is. 1 The statement was well received, but it was not until the 1970s that neoinstitutional economic history appeared with Douglass North as its champion.2 As a prerequisite for constructing a theory of economic growth North has formulated a neoclassical model for the beginning and timing of institutional change.3 In The Rise of the Western

"A New Economic Order": Etienne Clementel and French Economic Diplomacy during the First World War

ranging that the country would inevitably face a severe and complex problem of reconstruction. What kind of solution did the French government have in mind? Traditional historiography had a simple answer: the government hoped that German reparations would solve the whole problem. But, in fact, during the war the French government had worked out an economic policy in which reparation played a very subordinate role. Instead, the government basically pinned its hopes on Allied cooperation-or, more precisely, on the continuation into the reconstruction period of the inter-Allied economic system that had gradually taken shape during the war. These plans for the regularization of the international economy were closely linked to plans for economic organization at home. In both cases the aim was to suppress the free market: coordination through state channels would replace competition as the fundamental principle of resource allocation.

French Economic Growth

French Economic Growth

French Economic Growth

French Economic Growth

French Economic Growth.

French Economic Growth.

Letters From Across The Channel: III. The Ecole Nationale D'Administration

At a time when there is much superficial talk about the need for an ENA in Britain, that institution is under increasing criticism in France itself. Some of these criticisms are outlined and discussed by the high‐ranking civil servant whose letters on Ministerial Cabinets and French Economic Planning have already appeared in this journal. As before, these critical reflections are contained in a letter to Dr.Vincent Wright of the LSE, who has again kindly provided the translation and added a few footnotes to clarify certain points.

The French Economic Stake in Colonial Algeria

Interpretive analyses of European decolonization following the Second World War have scarcely begun to appear. In attempting to determine, for example, why the British and French experiences were so strikingly different historians will surely be concerned to weigh the respective importance of such influences on policy as national psychology, domestic political structure, and international strategic reasoning. But since the debates over the reasons for the founding of these empires have largely centered on the economic motivations involved, the role of these interests in affecting the decolonization process will logically come up for scrutiny. To be sure, observers generally deny that economic interests made any substantial difference in the French inability to decolonize easily (just as it is widely assumed the Third Republic's empire was not acquired for primarily economic reasons), but the relevant figures have yet to be assembled.' First, one must establish some estimate of what French colonial interests were economically speaking. Henri Brunschwig's study, the most respected to date, of the different motivations behind French colonial expansion under the Third Republic has concluded both that economic impetus was far from decisive and that it is doubtful in retrospect whether colonial policy actually served the general interests of French development.2 Nonetheless, Brunschwig does not discuss in any detail the function of colonial trade within the actual structure of the French economic system. This might reveal, for instance, that key sectors of the economy-pace-setters for the rest of the industrial sector -were heavily engaged in trade with technologically backward areas of the world and prospered from an imperialist foreign policy. Instead, Brunschwig simply relies on gross comparisons of the level of imperial trade to total French trade in order to discount the significance of the empire economically. Nor does he consider the larger framework of

French Economic and Social History

French Economic and Social History

Letters from Across the Channel: II French Economic Planning

Public AdministrationVolume 51, Issue 2 p. 185-185 Letters from Across the Channel: II French Economic Planning First published: June 1973 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1973.tb00137.xCitations: 3AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume51, Issue2June 1973Pages 185-185 RelatedInformation

Essays in French Economic History

Essays in French Economic History

Essays in French Economic History. Edited by Rondo Cameron with the assistance of F. F. Mendels and J. P. Ward. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, 1970. Pp. xiv, 423. $8.50.

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