A.-A. Cournot et les fondements théoriques de l''économie industrielle: un éclairage historique

Damien Fessler

Revue d'économie industrielle, 2010, vol. n° 132, issue 4, 31-52

Abstract: This paper examines the contribution of Cournot?s Researches into the mathe­matical principles of the theory of wealth (1838) to the foundations of industrial economics. It is argued that this contri­bution shall not be presented as the dis­covery of a set of theoretical results linked to partial equilibrium price theory. We support the opposite idea that the contribution of the Researches, far from being direct and univocal, proceeds from a long and complex phenomenon of reinterpretation by later economists. More precisely, it is argued that Cournot hadn?t conceived this study of market structures (monopoly, duopoly, and « unlimited competition ») as general scheme of price theory. Through an examination of the historical context of Cournot?s mathematical model, we try to restore its origi­nal meaning. We show that this model was originally built in order to solve a specific problem related to measurement of value, in a classical ricardian perspective. It is argued, finally, that Cournot?s contribution to industrial economics was much more methodological than theoretical.

Keywords: B16: History of Economic Thought: Quantitative and Mathematical; D4: Market Structure and Pricing; L0: Industrial Organization; General (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=REI_132_0031 (application/pdf)
http://www.cairn.info/revue-d-economie-industrielle-2010-4-page-31.htm (text/html)
free

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cai:reidbu:rei_132_0031

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Revue d'économie industrielle from De Boeck Université
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jean-Baptiste de Vathaire ().