ABSTRACT
The first sign of Potron’s renewed interest in economics came in 1935, when
he published his note ‘Sur certaines conditions de l’équilibre économique.
Lettre de M. Potron (90) à R. Gibrat (22)’ (Centre Polytechnicien d’Études
Économiques. X-Crise. Bulletin Mensuel, 1935, Nos. 24-25: 62-5). It was a
reaction to comments by Robert Gibrat on the talk ‘Le contenu économique des
plans et le planisme’ given by Jacques Branger on 22 February 1935, both of
which were published in a previous issue of the journal (Centre Polytechnicien
d’Études Économiques. X-Crise. Bulletin Mensuel, 1935, Nos. 20-21: 5-13, 14-
15). Potron saw similarities between a matrix used by Ragnar Frisch in his articles
‘Circulation planning: Proposal for a national organization of a commodity and
service exchange’ and ‘Circulation planning: Part III. Mathematical appendix’
(Econometrica, 1934, 2: 258-336; 422-35) referred to by Gibrat and the matrices
which he himself had used in his economic publications more than 20 years before.
