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Titre La Théorie Générale : de l'Economie Conventionnelle à l'Economie des Conventions
Auteur Olivier Favereau
Mir@bel Revue Cahiers d'économie politique
Numéro no 14-15, printemps-automne 1988 La Théorie Générale de John Maynard Keynes : un cinquantenaire
Rubrique / Thématique
La « Théorie Générale » et les programmes de recherche keynésiens
Page 197-220
Résumé anglais Our previous hypothesis about a duality of research projects in the General Theory is shown to put to the fore two theoretical notions, usually neglected when reading the G.T. : "Orthodoxy" (conventional Economics) and "Convention" . Keynes built the notion of "Conventional Economics" when he became aware of its inability to deal consistently with involuntary unemployment ; his "pragmatic" project then consisted in making unemployment logically possible inside "Conventional economics" by introducing strong uncertainty in the financial markets : although too high, the level of the interest rate results quite rationally from a "convention". Keynes' "radical" project, which he renounced in 1933, would have been to extend the behavioural consequences of such an uncertainty to goods and labour markets. Rules, institutions and conventions, being rational adaptations to uncertainty we suggest that the future of Keynesian economics depends on the development of the "Economics of Conventions" whereas the present "Conventional economics" may be the whole corpus of economic theories unable to deal with coordinating mechanisms other than market price (or rationing).
Source : Éditeur (via Persée)
Article en ligne http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/cep_0154-8344_1988_num_14_1_1069