Psychologie individuelle et stabilité d'un équilibre général concurrentiel dans le Traité d'économie pure de Maurice Allais

This article analyses Maurice Allais?'s contribution to the study of the stability of a competitive equilibrium. In his Traité d?'économie pure [1943], he demonstrates the local stability of a walrasian economy under a set of hypothesis tantamount to gross substitutability (Negishi [1962]). However, it would be unfair to reduce his contribution to this set of sufficient conditions. Allais?'s purpose is much more ambitious, to the extent that he endeavours to ground stability on a set of introspectively appealing assumptions, built on a detailed and sophisticated theory of choice. He aims at conciliating the realism of assumptions and the logical rigor of the demonstration. In this article, we highlight the psychological foundations of general equilibrium analysis in Allais?'s thought.Classification JEL : B21, B31.