Standard economic analysis assumes that people make choices that maximize their utility. Yet both popular discourse and other fields assume that people sometimes fail to make optimal choices and thus adversely affect their own happiness. Most social sciences thus frequently describe some...

We establish the Hurwicz-Uzawa integrability of the broad class of discrete-choice additive random-utility models of individual consumer behavior with perfect substitutes preferences and divisible goods. We derive the corresponding indirect uility function and then establish a representative...

The methods England took to restructure its public debt during the British Financial Revolution consisted of improving liquidity. Accordingly, the State sought to reestablish its solvability by basing its debt on tax revenues as well as to homogenize it, reduce its cost and improve the operation...

The methods England took to restructure its public debt during the British Financial Revolution consisted of improving liquidity. Accordingly, the State sought to reestablish its solvability by basing its debt on tax revenues as well as to homogenize it, reduce its cost and improve the...

We point out that the two and half years of negotiation (1692-1694) between a group of investors and the English government, who led to the establishment of the Bank of England, aimed to guarantee the liquidity of a new public debt and not to establish a bank. We analyze the evolution of the...

This paper celebrates the life and contributions of Gary Becker (1930-2014).

Hayek’s and Popper’s bibliographies, their biographies, their methodological theses in favor of individualism, their common commitment against historicism, historism and planism, and crossed references in their writings bring us to infer (at least) some intellectual debate between them, or...

The fertility of Adam Smith’s work stems from a paradoxical structure where the pursuit of economic self-interest and wealth accumulation serve wider social objectives. The incentive for this wealth accumulation comes from a desire for social recognition or "sympathy" – the need to recognise...

Utilitarianism represents a major reference to which Sen's writings refer back when it comes to the ethics of collective choices. Which utilitarianism is it; Sentham and Sidgwick's historical utilitarianism, the utilitarianism impregnated with marginal calculation a la Edgeworth, or the...