One of the best-known French economists in the world, Robert Boyer is associated with the school of regulation. Behind this formula gathers a group of mainly French economists whose work conditions economic reality on the evolution of institutions. They emphasize, in particular, the role of those around which is organized what is generally referred to as “capitalism”. Confirming this approach, Robert Boyer publishes under the title Macroeconomics and History an anthology of his writings where he explains how, and why, history and economics are intimately linked.
Their link is first of all due to the fact that economics, if it wants to be able to assert itself as a scientist, needs a verification of its theories. Unable, to obtain it, to carry out experiments likely to be repeated as the physicist has the leisure, the economist has at his disposal only history to make admit the relevance of his analyses. However, their link is also due to the fact that the world in which the economist evolves imposes on him the field of his reflections and obliges him to question himself regularly. To establish its legitimacy, it must direct its research towards the expectations of the society around it.
Historical knowledge and mastery of mathematics
The 18th century economist theorized growth through agriculture to increase tax revenues and clean up public finances. The 19th century economist contrasted the land rent of the aristocracy with the dynamism of capitalists in search of global outlets, in order to justify free trade. The mass unemployment of the 1930s led Keynes to formulate a response based on accepting an increase in public debt. The stagflation of the 1970s gave rise to the work of the “new classical macroeconomics”, a school favorable to a systematic recourse to competition and hostile to any form of state interventionism.
Bringing together six texts that have already appeared in scientific journals or in books, Robert Boyer’s work addresses both the lessons that can be drawn from long history, economics and its relations with public authorities, than others, more immediate, on the way governments responded to the financial crisis of 2008-2009 or on the recent Covid pandemic. The book is demanding but it remains accessible to non-specialists. And its indirect message on the need to keep, in order to provide a constructed and socially useful economic analysis, a method combining historical knowledge and mastery of mathematics is particularly welcome.
Macroeconomics and History – From the split to a new alliance
By Robert Boyer. Garnier classics, €38.
Rating: 5/5