Fiche de cours

La diffusion internationale des idées économiques

The international diffusion of economic ideas

Faculté de gestion: Faculté des sciences sociales et politiques (SSP)

Responsable(s): Harro Maas

Horaires du cours (Hebdomadaire)

Cours-Séminaire

Semestre de printemps
4 heures par semaine
56 heures par semestre
Hebdomadaire
Langue(s) d'enseignement: français
Public: Oui
Crédits: 6.00

Objectif

Our purpose is to understand the different ways in which travel contributes (or does not) to knowledge formation, and how we can see this back in the economists's methods and theories.
We will proceed from primary documents and texts, as well as relevant secondary sources. Much, but not all of these materials will be in English. As far as financial support permits, I will invite specialists to introduce some of the economists we will be discussing.
Teaching will be in a mix of French and English.

Contenu

It is common wisdom that travel enriches someone's world and knowledge. The early discoveries and expeditions, the nineteenth century Grand Tour, the contemporary gap-year. Examples abound. These travels, however, usually have two sides: the traveler who comes to learn or who comes to impose and colonize. How is this for economics and economists? In this course we will take examples from history to see how economists traveled to learn or to impose. We do so under the label "travellers/fellow travellers to indicate the questionable political commitments that went with the travels of some of the economists we will be looking at. Our cast of characters will be flexible, but to give some idea, we can think of Friedrich List, Alfred Marshall and Ronald Coase traveling, over the course of a century, to the United States to learn how a (protectionist) economy functions, we can think of François Perroux and others who traveled fascist Europe to understand its economics, of Joan Robinson visiting China and being enthusiastic about Mao's reforms, of Phyllis Deane and Wolfgang Stolpert who visited Africa to get to grips with a non-market economy, of Milton Friedman and James Buchanan who visited Chili just after Pinochet's coup to advise on economic policy. We can also think of Amartya Sen who cycled the countryside to understand the causes of famines.

Evaluation

essais 75% et participation active au cours 25%

Bibliographie

A syllabus of readings will be distributed at the beginning of the course

Exigences du cursus d'études

pas de prérequis