The article discusses the origins of the U-shaped average cost curve, which is one of the most widely used tools in microeconomic analysis. Its widespread use leads many to consider it as a basic tool, obscuring the fact that the graph of the U-shaped average cost curve is part of a complex...

From Walras to Debreu, the history of general equilibrium analysis went through three major episodes, each linked to a different place. In Lausanne, Walras builds the first general equilibrium equations as an element of a global social science. In Vienna, in the early 1930s, Wald is the first to...

Poverty was an ubiquitous theme in the literature of the beginning of the 19th century, and its analysis shifted from political or charitable perspectives to embrace a young science, namely the political economy. Stendhal’s example shows how political economy had become the only legitimate...

Léon Walras a publié deux articles sur la propriété intellectuelle. En 1859, il conclut, comme les libéraux, à un droit de propriété illimité et perpétuel des auteurs. En 1880, il soutient que la propriété intellectuelle résulte d’un monopole temporaire artificiellement créé par...