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This paper aims to show the evolution in the research project pursued in the first twenty issues of the Cahiers d'économie politique (CEP). First, I stress that the coherence of this project is due to the organization in the research work and to the consequent definition of the research topics. This singles out four stages in CEP's evolution. The first three stages lead to a new conception of the history of economic analysis which becomes the fundamental tool to allow a heterodox theorizing. This new conception leaves, however, open questions. The fourth stage analyzes these open questions but does not solve them by means of a combination between the critical approach in the history of economic analysis and a number of recent results reached in the orthodox economic theory.

The lack of forward exchange markets and the discounting of long bills of exchange specifically determine the profitability of short term capital flows in the 19th century. Even if it results form domestic goals, an interest differential induces speculative movements which lead to gold and silver flows between countries, depending on the prevailing price configurations. The book by G.J. Goschen [The Theory of Foreign Exchanges, 1861] then demonstrates the effectiveness of the discount policy of the Bank of England to restore the exchange rate and to replenish her metallic reserves.

The great challenge for neoclassical paradigms is whether its methodological individualism is capable of coming to grips with the collective or social nature of information. Arrow's subtle observation regarding the increasing returns to communication is one of those peculiarities which contradicts the concept of scarcity of information. Bounded rationality is another example. While remaining faithful to methodological individualism of standard economic theory, Arrow describes information as a specific non-ordinary commodity, revealing the limits of imperfections of market and entering into the general category of externalities. He sets forth some fundamental principles of the economics of information and the new microeconomics by focusing on issues such as information gathering, communication efficiency, and transmission costs in deciding among forms of economic organization. In our critical review of Arrow's theory of information, we endeavor to show that despite its great achievements, this theory does not capture the tacit, institutionalized, unexpected, and non-rational dimensions of knowledge. The organizational or corporate culture cannot be derived from market failure. It is the direct outcome of internal organization of the firm and other social networks, and thus closely related to learned and transmitted knowledge in a group context.

Recent approaches concerning employment relations have not been able to escape from views that labor as a commodity, despite the reference to concepts such as equity, conventions or authority. The aim of this article is to show that C. Benetti & J. Cartelier 's work present an appropriate framework to understand the unique features of employment relations. This framework inspired by Schumpeter's definition of monetary approach and Kalecki' s theory of profits, describes employment relations as asymetrical relations based on money. By doing so, it avoids the distorted methods of models that view labor as a commodity. It also avoids the use of concepts that are not justified economically However, a limitation of this framework is that it disconnects the wage rate from the production process because of the disconnection of wages from the production process.

The paper seeks to clarify the links between money, prices and growth in a historic and evolutionary prospect using the neo-ricardian theory of production prices. More precisely, we begin with the simplest money system, that of medieval economy, to show how the introduction of growth phenomenon comes to unsettle the first regulation and impose a progressive demonetization of money as a commodity, a problem which, according to us, has not received a satisfactory answer from a theoretical perspective.