See also: Went

Maurice Felix Charles Allais (Paris, May 31st 1911 -) is a economist French. He is especially known for his work in economy for which he received many distinctions of which the “Nobel Prize” of economy in 1988 for its contributions to the Théorie of the markets and the effective use of the resources. He is the only French economist to have received this distinction.

Biography

Maurice Allais was born in 1911 with Paris where his/her parents held a cheese dairy. His/her father died in captivity in Germany in 1915. He makes brilliant studies with the Lycée Lakanal of Sceaux between 1921 and 1930 where he obtains the Baccalauréat Mathématiques and the Baccalaureat Philosophy in 1929. He integrates the Polytechnic school in 1930 after one year of preparatory class but resigns because he considers his classification insufficient. After one New Year's Day of preparatory class to the Louis-the-Large College of Paris, it again integrates the Polytechnic school in 1931 - of which it leaves major promotion in 1933 - then the School of the mines of Paris in 1934. It carries out its military service in Artillery with Fontainebleau. It begins its career of mining engineer in the district of Nantes in 1936. It takes again its active military service in the Army of the the Alps like Alpine hunter and becomes lieutenant ordering an artillery battery in the area of Briançon in 1939, until the French defeat in 1940. He becomes director of the office of documentation and statistics mines to Paris in 1943 until in 1948 and publishes his first work. He becomes then researcher and teaching full-time. He obtains the title of Engineer-doctor to the Faculty of Science of Paris in 1949. He is director of the center of economic analysis starting from 1946, director of the group of research economic and social in 1944 - 1970, professor d' Économie with the school of the mines of Paris in 1944 - 1988, theoretical professor d' Économie at the Statistical institute of the Université of Paris in 1947 - 1968, distinguished visiting scolar in the center Thomas Jefferson of the Université of Virginia in 1958 - 1959, professor at the Institute of the High international studies of Geneva in 1967 - 1970, directs the seminar of monetary analysis to the University of Paris X in 1970 - 1985 and research director at CNRS in 1946 - 1980. It accumulates many prices during its career. He is Honorary Engineer Général of the Corps of the mines since 1980.

He takes his official retirement in 1980, but continues his research activities and of teaching. Maurice Allais likes to say that it had only one pupil in his career, Gerard Debreu, that which had the “Nobel Prize” before him.

Maurice Allais published more than 90 articles and several works of which the world-wide crisis today (ED. Clement Juglar, 1999) where it makes reform proposals of the world financial system. But in its country, it is known general public only after its “Nobel Prize” in 1988 (the quotation marks are there to recall that it is about an abusive diminutive: there does not exist Nobel Prize of economy, but a Price in memory of Alfred Nobel; Maurice Allais writes all the same Nobel Prize below his name in the books published since), and communicates his ideas by posterior publications, mainly his great articles given to the Barber.

The economist

He explains at the time of his Short speech of Maurice Allais on October 19th, 1993, when he receives the sword of Academician, his passion, his centers of interests in economy in these terms: My passion for the Economy, I owe it with the circumstances, the questions raised by the Great Depression in the world and by the social disturbances of 1936 in France, with the insurmountable obstacles met at the time to devote me to physics, and finally to the implications of the second world war .

It is the desire to answer the economic questions and social of the Thirties taking into consideration insufficiency of the literature which, after my demobilization in July 1940, brought me, as a pure autodidact, to deepen successively: - the theory of the maximum effectiveness, the general theory of the surpluses, and the general theory of the market economy (with an S); - the theory of the capital and the maximum capital intensive effectiveness; - the theory of the risk; - the theory of monetary dynamics; - the time series and theory of probability. In all these fields of fundamental economy, I think of having opened new ways .

I continued these studies of fundamental economy in constant connection with the analysis of the problems of our time and the data of the history. It is this concern which brought me to many studies of economy applied: - on economic calculation, economic management, the taxation, and the monetary policy; - on the compared analysis of the standards of living and the productivities, the international exchanges, the economic system international currency, and unions; - on the sectoral economies of energy, transport, and mining research .

Main themes from research from Went are market equilibrium, theory from capital, process intertemporal (it is in the beginning, with Paul Samuelson, from the models to overlapping generations which found many applications in macroeconomics and monetary theory), the decision theory with the paradox of Went the theory of money by reformulating the Quantity theory of money. Maurice Allais will also develop the concept of gold rule of the growth ( Économie and interest , 1947) which will be popularized by work of Edmund Phelps. He shows that when interest rate is equal to growth rate consumption is maximized.

The traveller of Calais

Did Maurice Go installation the question of knowing “how much costs a passenger assembled Calais in the train for Paris? ”.

• a controller will estimate that the consumption of additional resources is not really calculable, and will be tempted to answer almost nothing (marginal Coût no one).
• the conductor will be measured more: if sixty passengers make like him, it is necessary to add a car to the train. It will thus be tempted to charge 1/60ème cost of the car during the time of transport.
• the chief of line does not hear it this ear: one cannot indefinitely add cars to a train, and for 20 cars it is necessary to double this one. It thus wishes to charge for its part, in addition to the 1/60ème of car precedent, 1/1200ème of the price of the motor coach and the wages of its driver.
• the chief of network is not at all of agreement: one cannot thus multiply the trains without risk on the same way, and starting from 50 trains per day it is obliged to double the way. He thus adds for its part 1/120 000ème cost of the way (always paid to the time of transport).

Maurice Went watch as by successive approximations one arrives so that must be the minimal cost of the ticket so that the railway company is never found in a dead end. This example is associated to him under the name of metaphor of the traveller of Calais , which illustrates that one can never properly speak about the cost of a good or a service, but which it is more exact to speak about cost of a decision while indicating to which level one considers it.

The economists for a long time recognize the relative character of the concept of cost since they say that the cost is never but a " cost of opportunité" : the value of it what one gives up at the time of acting. The paradox is that the theoretical representations of the economists mathematicians do not reason in terms of action but in terms of situations , so that they are not best placed to draw the logical consequences from them. Maurice Allais understood that the cost depends on the situation of the decision maker, but he does not recognize that it also depends on the circumstances , since it appears really only at the time of the concrete acts which he determines indeed, at the same time as the value, it also personally perceived at this time . This is why its estimate of the " coûts" in the examples which it gives whimsical and arbitrary residence, since it does not bind it to any real alternative: in general, only one additional passenger does not involve any the decisions which its evaluation of the " would imply; coûts" in question. Only the Austrian economists can really reason on the cost like determinant of the concrete actions and so show the difference between the costs of the concrete decisions and the prices supposed to give an account in the various situations of it.

The paradox of Went

The most famous intervention of Went is its paradox, highlighted at a conference of the american economic society which was held with New York in 1953 and various papers published in the years 1950. It blamed the concept “of hoped utility” forged by John von Neumann.

The theory of the hoped utility is based on a series of axioms concerning the attitude of a rational individual having to make choices in risky situation. Went showed, by the experimentation, that one of these axioms was frequently violated by the individuals: the axiom of independence. This axiom is stated in the following way: “if the lottery has is preferred with the lottery B, then, whatever the lottery C and whatever the probability p, the lottery (p); C (1-p) is preferred with the lottery (p); C (1-p)”. (p); C (1-p) indicates a méta-lottery in which one plays the lottery has with the probability p, and the lottery C with the probability (1-p).

This axiom seems perfectly natural: no matter what thinks the individual of the lottery C, if one asks him “to mix it” either with has or with B, with an identical probability p in both cases, one must expect that it chooses that which it prefers, or, by assumption, A. Pourtant, the experiment shows that the presence of an unquestionable profit in the alternatives suggested leads a great number of people not to conform to this axiom. This phenomenon can be illustrated for the following example. He is requested from the questioned people, initially, to choose between the two lotteries has and B following:

a: € (100%)

b: € (90%); 0 € (10%)

In general, a majority of people prefer the lottery has, which gets an unquestionable profit.

In the second time, it is asked to them to choose between the following lotteries C and D:

C: € (10%); 0 € (90%)

D: € (9%); 0 € (91%)

In general, a majority of people prefer the lottery D, where the probability of losing is slightly stronger, but which gets, in the event of profit, a profit much more important. However, the simultaneity of these two choices violates the axiom of independence. Indeed, let us define the lottery E by E: € (100%), i.e. a null profit some. A simple calculation makes it possible to show that:

C: (10%); E (90%)

D: (10%); E (90%)

Under the terms of the axiom of independence, if has is preferred with B, then C should be preferred with D, which is not the case in practice.

The discovery of Went gave place to multiple developments in Decision theory and behavioral economy.

François Guillaumat, economist Austrian, calls this discovery the " precede with the certitude" but estimates that this result does not belong to the economic theory but to the experimental Psychologie.

Policy

Personal engagement

August 1st During its career of teacher, Allais took various political positions. In April 1947, it takes part in the sides in particular of the liberal economists Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek with the meeting of creation of the Société of the Mount Pilgrim, close to Vevey, in Switzerland. The members of the Company of the Mount Pilgrim wished to fight against the rise of the state control and to restore the freedom of the exchanges such as it reigned before 1914.

At the time of the war of Algeria, he had declared himself in favor of French Algeria.

From 1994 (" Engagements for Europe 1992 - 1994 "), Maurice Allais denounces the policy free-trader mondialist approved by l'" Organization of Bruxelles" , while revealing on the statistics of unemployment, growth rate and GDP per capita, clear a " cassure" as from the year 1974 in comparison with the evolution observed of 1950 with 1974. This policy in favor of free trade would be according to him - in the absence of community preference - the cause of the increase in unemployment in France and more generally in Europe. This thesis is developed in a recent work published in 2007 " universalization, destruction of employment and the growth ".

Political use of its positions

Since 1993, this standpoint is used as guarantee with the extrème-right-hand side with the abandonment of its former positions reaganiennes in France: part of its recent ideas were included in the economic program of the National front.

Its proposals concerning monetary creation, the banking system and stock-broker are completely " révolutionnaires" (see a note of reading on the page the World-wide crisis today) just as its proposals concerning the taxation (see For the reform of the taxation).

See also its critic of the European Constitutional treaty (Maurice Were going, " Aveuglements" , Le Monde , May 14th, 2005) also in the work published in December 1995 " Europe in crisis. What to make? ".

Interest for physics

See also: Effet Went

During his career, Maurice Allais was also interested in problems of physics, in particular in the field of the Gravitation and the restricted Relativité.

In the current of the Years 1950, it is interested in the influence of the fields gravific and magnetic on the movement of a pendulum of its manufacture: the paraconic Clock. During these experiments, it detects unexplained regularities of periodicity lunisolaire (24h50). While corroborating with optical measurements of aimings on test card, it detects of the same regularities periodicity. In addition, at the time of two solar eclipses, one in 1954 and the other in 1959, it detects an exceptional deviation of the movement of the pendulum. This anomaly is known under the name of Effet Went and described in the Comptes-rendus of the Academy of Science (CRAS). The reality even of this effect is discussed, but of possible causes of atmospheric origin represent an explanation more probable than a modification of the laws of the gravitation (see the article Effet Went for more details).

Later, it takes again the historical results of experiments of type Expérience of Michelson-Morley, in particular those carried out by Dayton Miller in the current of the Années 1920. He claims to find elements refuting the interpretation of these experiments within the framework of the restricted Relativité. He indicates to have highlighted a Anisotropie of space, and indicates to have highlighted a support used by the electromagnetic waves to be propagated, the ether, which he says being partially pulled by the Ground in his race around the Sun. This work was not the object of publications or quotations in international scientific magazines with Reading panel, but a part was published in the CRAS. Three years before, it had published a work bound for the scientific community on the subject, the anisotropy of space , with for goal to present the whole as of its experimental work and analyzes in physics, without referring to recent work in this field.

If the Allais effect were discussed by several physicists (who proposed explanations returning within the framework of known physics, contrary to Maurice Allais), its theories on the anisotropy of space are treated like anecdotic by the Scientific community, as the absence testifies some to quotations and even of simple referencing on the dedicated databases Astrophysics Data System (ADS) and WHORLS. In addition Roger Balian wrote a note aiming at refuting the remarks of Went. Other physicists study the possibility of anisotropy of space, like Alan Kostelecky; but the results of Kostelecky remain null whereas it practiced tests making it possible to detect variations much more negligible than those which claims to find Allais.

Went illustrated itself in the Controverse on the paternity of relativity like the only Nobel Prize to attack Einstein, an example of chauvinism polytechnician to the eyes of Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond. Went has besides tendency to mèler its two engagements against Einstein, called into question of its theory and charges of plagiarism.

Distinctions

• Large Officer of the Legion of Honor (2005)
• Grand Cross of the National order of the Merit
• Officer of the Academic Palms (1949)
• Knight of the Nation's economy (1962)

• “Nobel Prize” of economy 1988

• Member of the Institute - Academy of Science Morals and Political

It is elected there on June 25th, 1990, with the armchair of Guillaume Guindey, in section of the political, statistical economy and finances.

• Member of the National committee of the C.R.N.S. (1947-1980)
• Member of the Commission of the energy of the Economic and Social Council (1960-1961)
• President of the Committee of experts for the study of the options of the tariff policy in transport, European Economic community (1963-1964)
• Member of the international Company of Econometrics (1949-1980)
• Member of the International institute of Statistics (1951-1980)
• Fellow off the New York Academy off Sciences (1956-1970)
• Fellow off the Operations Research Society off America (1958-1970)
• Fellow off Council off the Econometric Society (1960-1965)
• President of the French Association of Economic scene
• Honorary member off the American Economic Association (1976)

• foreign Member associated with the US Academy National off Sciences (1989)

• foreign Member associated with Accademia Main road dei Lincei (1991)
• foreign Member associated with the Academy of Science of Russia (1999)

• Honorary doctor of the University of Groningue (1964), of the University of Mons (1992), The American University off Paris (1992), of the University of Lisbon (1993)

• Diploma of honor of the School of the High commercial studies of Paris (HEC), 1993

• Large Medal Vermeil of the Town of Paris (1989)
• Large Gold medal of the Town of Nice (1989)
• Large Gold medal of the Town of Nancy (1990)
• Gold medal of the Company of encouragement for national industry (1970)
• Gold medal of CNRS (1978)
• Gold medal of the University of Paris-X Nanterre (1989)
• Gold medal of Civic Star (1990)

Price

Economy

• Price Laplace 1933 and Prix Rivot of the Academy of Science for its row of exit (n°1) of the Polytechnic school.
• Price Charles Dupin, 1954 of the Academy of Science Morals and Political
• Lanchester Prize off the John Hopkins University and the Operations Research Society off America (1958)
• Price Joseph Dutens, 1959 of the Academy of Science Morals and Political
• Price Robert Blanché (1983) of the Academy of Science Morals and Political
• Grand Prix Guido Zerilli Marimo of the Academy of Science Morals and Policies (1984)
• Special price of the jury, at the time of the creation of the price Dupuit-with-Lesseps (1987)

Physics

• Galabert Price of the French company of astronautics (1959)
• Prize winner off the Gravity Research Foundation, 1959, the USA

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