The French Historical School
The establishment of chairs of economics in law faculties throughout France
after 1878 broke the monopoly held by the French Liberal
School on the French establishment. Many of the new appointees were of
a quite different stripe.
Inspired by German Historicism (and modestly
inspired by the rising discipline of sociology)
this new breed of
academics pursued the historical and empirical method in their economics.
They were also quite politically involved, some of them leaning heavily towards State
corporatism. Their main organ was the Revue économique internationale.
Under the leadership of Émile Levasseur,
the French Historical School did much to bury the Lausanne
School at its birth (although the exceptionally receptive conduct of the
pluralist Charles Gide deserves honorable mention) However, one could argue
that they were never really a self-conscious
"school" as such and even its "historicist" credentials could be
disputed. Its business cycle strand, for instance, was highly
theoretical and influential on subsequent cycle theory.
Early French Historicists
- Horace Émile Say, 1794-1860
- Histoire des relations commerciales entre la France et le Bresil, 1830.
- Etudes sur l'administration de la ville de Paris, 1846.
- French businessman and historian. Son and follower of J.B. Say.
Michel Chevalier
and the French Liberal School
The Historical School
- Charles Gide
, 1847-1932. - (1)
- Principes d'economie politique, 1883.
- Economie sociale, 1905.
- Cours d'economie politique, 1909.
- A History of Economic Doctrines, with C. Rist, 1909 - review
- Les Societes Cooperatives de Consomption, 1918 - review
- Les Colonies Communistes et Co-Operatives, 1930.
- Influential founder of the Revue d'économie politique, Charles Gide was a
proponent of the historical approach to economics. However, he was by no means intolerant
of pluralism - he was one of Leon Walras's few
supporters, although perhaps less because of his economics and more because of their
shared social philosophy and activism in the co-operative movement. In the 1930s,
Gide was critical in resisting the arrival of the Keynesian
Revolution in France..
- François Simiand
, 1873-1935.
- "Méthode historique et Science social", 1903, Revue
de synthèse historique
- "Review of Jevons,
Pareto and Marshall", 1909, L'année sociologique
- La Méthode positive en science économique, 1912.
- Le Salaire: l'evolution sociale et la monnaie, 1932.
- French historicist whose 1912 methodological tract was an eloquent defense of the
experimental and historical approach to economics.
- Jean Lescure
, 1882-1947.
- Des crises générales et périodiques de surproduction, 1906.
- L'Epargne en France, 1914.
- Hausses et baisses des prix de longue durée, 1933
- Etude sociale comparée des régimes de liberté et des régimes authorites,
1939.
- Principes d'économie rationelle, 1947.
- Developer of overinvestment theory of the business
cycle.
- Michel Auguste Adolphe Landry,
1874-1956.
- La Responsabilite Penale, 1902 - review
- L'Utilite sociale de la propriete individuelle, 1903.
- L'interet du capital, 1904.
- Principes de la Morale Rationelle, 1906 - review
- Manuel d'economoique, 1908.
- Les Mutations des monnaies dans l'ancienne France, 1910.
- La Revolution demographique, 1934.
- Traite de demographie.
- French demographer, historian and economist, particularly associated with the Austrian School. His 1904 treatise is a notable restatement
of Bohm-Bawerk's theory of capital in terms of time
preference.
Resources French Historicism