Louis-Amable Petit and the 19th Century Literature on Crises and Cycles
This paper discusses the theory of crises propounded by Louis-Amable Petit (1868) in the context of the state of similar theories in the second half of the 19th century. An adversary of Say’s law, Petit offered an endogenous explanation of crises based on the fluctuations of the part of income consu...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association Œconomia
2012-06-01
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| Series: | Œconomia |
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| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/1583 |
| Summary: | This paper discusses the theory of crises propounded by Louis-Amable Petit (1868) in the context of the state of similar theories in the second half of the 19th century. An adversary of Say’s law, Petit offered an endogenous explanation of crises based on the fluctuations of the part of income consumed, as opposed to a persistent incentive to expand production. While the almost universal approach to the problem at the time interpreted crises as a liquidation of the excesses of speculative prosperity, but failed to identify a mechanism for recovery, considered a simple matter of course, Petit closed the causal circle and described the lower turning point as a consequence of the crisis and the ensuing income fall. He is therefore one of the first writers (not only in France) to have advanced a full theory of business cycles. |
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| ISSN: | 2113-5207 2269-8450 |