ABSTRACT
Schumpeter was not the only one in the 1950s to highlight the presence of a significant number of French engineers who had turned to economic problems and made notable contributions to economic theory. As Franqois Etner (1978) has pointed out, the notion of a 'French tradition of engineer-economists' in economic literature emerged above all after the publication of Franqois Divisia's study in 195 1, which was the first specific piece of research into the subject. Many scholars since then have searched for a founding father; according to Robert B. Ekelund and Robert F. HCbert (1978, p. 638), the long and rich tradition of economic studies at the ~ c o l e des Ponts et ChaussCes was 'inspired perhaps by Vauban . . . whose contributions to public finance were unmatched until Adam Smith'.' On the other hand, RenC Roy (1945) attributes the origins of the French engineer-economists to Achylle Nicolas ~snard,' while most of the literature on the subject produced after the 1950s argues that the founder of the
'French school of public economics' (with which such a tradition is identified) was Jules ~ u ~ u i t . ~ This includes those scholars (engineers by qualification andl or by profession) who handed down some fundamental principles and some analytical frameworks specifically aimed at the solution of problems directly linked to the engineering profession. Among the upholders of the tradition who have already been mentioned, E. Cheysson (1863-1910) and C. Colson (1853-1939) took up the system worked out by Dupuit to analyse the problems related to the fixing of tariffs, to public investments, and to the merits of the public management of monopolies. Two other engineer-economists were pupils of Colson: F. Divisia (1889-1964) and R. Roy (1894-1977), who taught the so-called 'Dupuit-Colson synthesis'4 for another twenty years. Among those contemporaries who are keeping the prestigious tradition alive today, we need only mention the name of Maurice Allais, who dedicated his first work to his 'master' Divisia (Allais, 1943) and who himself has more than once claimed his descent from Dupuit (Allais, 1989, p. 159).
