Contenu du sommaire : Hommage à Alain Barrère

The object of this paper is to show the contribution of J.-M. Keynes about the international standard of measure. Part one emphasizes the importance of the unit of account and the standard — which measures the stability of the former — in a monetary economy. In part two, the orthodox theory about international standard of measure, i.e. purchasing power parity, is studied. Part three describes the contributions of Clearing Union's project about the unit of account and the standard in international economy. J.-M. Keynes has a unitary theory of the money of account. It results from this a conceptual rupture between national economy and international economy.

This article tries to show how substituting, in old keynesian macroeconomics, the requirements of financing for a shadow money market in equilibrium eliminates the main determinants of the interest rate but also the mere functioning of the market

This paper presents the methods and the results contained in Robertson's theoretical writings in the twenties. His analysis rests on two main tools : 1) A production process representation through time, which combines real and monetary aspects of economic activity, and makes dynamic analysis easier. 2) The Cambridge demand for cash balances which, in his model, can be used as a substitute for the consumption or the saving functions. Robertson shows how the logic of production can contradict that of demand and examines what will be the issue of their discrepancy. He makes the forced saving concept more accurate through defining different kinds of « lacking » that he uses to interpret the unwinding of inflation processes. Growth rests on sudden bursts of investment, which can scarcely be met by equally large changes in voluntary saving. Hence the monetary policy dilemma : must price stability be aimed at first, or must industrial progress be supported by allowing a little forced saving ?

The paper first takes note of the difficulties met by Joan Robinson and her partisans and critics when attempting to pull together the post-Keynesian short-period approach and the classical long-period approach. In attempting to reach a post-classical synthesis, it is proposed to start from a Kaleckian model of growth and distribution, the price system of which would rely on the full cost approach, more precisely the target return principle, computed on the basis of a normal rate of capacity utilization. The second part of the paper describes such a model with excess capacities, while the third part deals with the analysis of the traverse from one steady-state to another within a two- sector framework. Dynamic stability issues and reproportionning are also dealt with. In conclusion it is noted that while some mechanisms may support the claims of those who argue that long-period analysis must be conducted on the basis of fully adjusted positions — linked to normal rates of utilization — this does not imply that the results and causations of the Keynesian/Kaleckian approach, along with its principle of effective demand, must be discarded in long run analysis. This conclusion arises as a consequence of the phenomenon of hysteresis, which transforms the normal rate of capacity utilization into a variable which itself is endogenous.

This article shows that the classical idea according to which different kinds of labor are valued by means of a stable scale of wages brings about two radically different criteria in achieving labor homogenization, which differ in the concept of homogeneous labor as well as in the measure of annual labor : one is clearly formulated by Keynes in his General Theory, while the other remains implicit in Sraffa's Production of Commodities. It is also shown that Sraffa 's standard commodity makes possible the understanding of variations in relative prices as a result of a change in the quantities of homogeneous labor employed in the production of commodities.

This paper looks into the representations of the market in the french « conventionnalistes » economic texts. One peculiar method of analysis, called rhetoric, is used. It shows that the figures used in their view of neoclassical economics situate them apart from it and far from the methodological individualism, even if they nevertheless claim for it. The outcome if that the « Economie des conventions » can only claim for one market figure, stemed from keynesian economics, that we call the « crowd ». In the end, we disclose the « neoclassical myth of the market, which we contrast with the specific field of « conventionnaliste » analysis.

Within liberalist tradition, J.-P. Dupuy is opposing Political Economy (namely Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek) and Economic Science. The fonner alone is liable (without real success) to conceive social order as an autonomous system emerging and self-producing in an endogeneous way apart from individuals but depending on their interaction, while individuals and society bringing about each other in a circular way. Economic Science, on the other hand, cannot accurately analyse the problems of Sacrifice, Envy, and Equity on account of its strictly individualist postulate. J.-P. Dupuy infers to radical unsteadiness of human order, fated to the « decided undecidable » and which contains (on the double meaning of the word) disorder.