The year 1848 is considered by historians as a political and economic turning point in France: a major political crisis took place in the form of the February Revolution, accompanied by extensive financial troubles for the French government. The economists of that time actively debated the...

À la fin du XIX^e siècle, la controverse sur le bimétallisme divise l’école libérale française en deux groupes opposés. L’examen des arguments présentés par le camp bimétalliste et par ses adversaires nous permet d’affirmer que leur opposition ne peut être réduite à une simple...

In the middle of the 19th century three French mathematical economists, Jules Dupuit, Augustin Cournot and Gustave Fauveau, develop analyses of taxation which strongly dissent from these of their liberal contemporaries. By trying to give rational principles to public policies, these three...

Gustave Fauveau, a French mathematician and economist of the mid-nineteenth century, presented in 1864 an innovative theory of taxation that has been largely overlooked by historians of economic thought. He provides a mathematical framework for the analysis of taxation, considered both as the...