L'empreinte historique de la théorie de l'entrepreneur. Enseignements tirés des analyses de Jean-Baptiste Say et de Joseph Aloïs Schumpeter

Jean-Baptiste Say and Joseph Aloïs Schumpeter are two key-economists in the theory of the entrepreneur. Both assigned to the entrepreneur the role of an economic engine, moved by innovation. Moreover, both lived in periods characterized by a flow of economic and political new ideas (Say : the French Revolution, the Empire of Napoléon, the Bourbon Restoration, the first industrial revolution ; Schumpeter : the two World Wars, the Bolshevik Revolution, the 1929 crisis, the second industrial revolution). Their theories, embedded in troubled times ; define an individual who constantly avoids being locked in (economic, social, political and technical) routines. Nevertheless, an important point distinguishes their approaches : Say describes a real entrepreneur, while Schumpeter reduces him to an ideal type. JEL Codes : B12, L26