In this paper, we review the recent econometric methods related to unit root tests. The central idea is the interac tion between structural breaks and unit roots. We consider the standard Dickey-Fuller test and its modifications that allow under the alternative hypothesis one or multiple...

Hayek regards complexity as specific to spontaneous orders or self-organizing structures. These orders are characterized by the phenomena of irreducible ignorance and emergence (of new properties of the whole which its separate parts do not possess) and by the incapacity to handle them. Their...

We deal here with the issue of menu-dependent choice set in Sen [1971,1993, 1994,1997]. However, we use a different approach to Baigent and Gaertner [1996], Gaertner and Xu [1997,1999 a, b, c]. Indeed, we assume that choice is menudependent because preferences are menu-dependent. Classification...

At the beginning of the 20th century, the community of economists urged to find a new way of filling the gap between theory and reality, this rapprochement being thought in view of actual measurement. Quantitative economics was particularly developing around 1910 through two approaches: empirism...

This work is an attempt, first, to outline the basic building blocks of evolutionary theory in economics and, second, to offer a comparative assessment of different strands of literature which call upon evolutionary ideas of some sort. We sketch out what we consider to be the main results...

The reasons for the rise of the theories of monopolistic competition are fairly well identified. This is much less the case for their decline. This article will identify the forces that are responsible for the fact that the theories of monopolistic competition remain an interlude in the history...

The paper revisits the rationality principle from the particular perspective of the unity of social sciences. It has been argued that the principle was the unique law of the social sciences and that accordingly there are no deep differences between them (Popper). It has also been argued that the...

This article questions the increasing use of ?happiness? or ?subjective well-being? in order to evaluate public policies and social conditions. After reminding the place of the economics of happiness in the history of economic thought, it presents the methodological arguments, as well as the...