ExEco

The renewal of the historiography of the Occupation, initiated by Robert Paxton's seminal work (1973), has emphasized the diversity of practices and attitudes toward the German occupiers. Indeed, far from being a homogeneous entity, the Vichy regime was characterized by internal conflicts among competing tendencies. A particularly emblematic case is the drafting of the Labor Charter (October 1941), an innovative yet ultimately unfinished document whose chaotic composition highlighted sharp divisions among various economic and social factions (LeCrom, 1995). This historiographical shift has also contributed to challenging the perception of Vichy as merely a historical "parenthesis," disconnected from pre- and post-war France. By questioning the ideological and political unity of the regime, the continuity between what was conceived and produced by different actors within the French State (both institutionally and intellectually) and France’s post-1945 reconstruction emerges as a crucial issue (Nord, 2010).

In this context, the project "The Making of Economic Expertise in France (ExEco)" aims primarily to describe and analyze the development of economic theory in France from 1939 to 1945, as well as the connections economists maintained with economic and political authorities. By investigating these developments, the project also seeks to elucidate the emergence of economics as a discipline becoming increasingly independent.

Many academic economists were involved, directly or indirectly, with the Vichy regime. Some had close relationships with the ruling authorities, while others joined research institutions supported by the new regime. For certain members of a profession still seeking definition, Vichy provided an opportunity to affirm their expert status. It is important to recall that, at the outbreak of World War II, economics was still considered an ancillary discipline to law, characterized by a threefold desire for emancipation that had been growing since the end of World War I. First, there was an academic emancipation from legal scholarship, as economists were still required to pass the law aggregation (agrégation de droit). Second, a theoretical emancipation was taking place, symbolized by the rise of mathematical economics. Third, economists sought political emancipation by asserting their role as experts within emerging economic governance institutions. These aspirations found expression in the 1930s through X-Crise, an extra-academic organization open to new methods and positioned as a crucible for novel political proposals (Armatte, 2010). Our working hypothesis is that although these technocratic aspirations existed before World War II, the Occupation period represented a significant break during which research institutions emerged that were larger, more structured, and more closely connected to political power than those, such as X-Crise, had been previously. In this sense, the Vichy regime served as an important vehicle for promoting economic expertise.

The EDEV research project, jointly led by GREDEG and the Centre Walras-Pareto, examines how the Vichy regime contributed to establishing an institutional framework that partially fulfilled economists’ professional aspirations. A central focus of our work is the Fondation française pour l'étude des problèmes humains, better known as the "Fondation Carrel," once directed by François Perroux, a leading post-war economist. Notably, within this foundation was the Centre d’échange de théorie économique (CETE), directed by Henri Denis. Key figures who significantly influenced the post-war era participated in CETE, which foreshadowed the Institut de science économique appliquée founded by Perroux in 1944. Our initial hypothesis is that the CETE, embedded within a dense institutional network, contributed significantly to establishing the figure of the economist as an expert. However, the establishment of a stronghold where economists recognized by political authorities could develop ideas and issue recommendations does not necessarily imply that their recommendations directly influenced the economic policies enacted by Vichy. We will also examine this issue in light of the extensive scholarship on Vichy's economic policy history (Rousso, 1979; Kuisel, 1984; Margairaz, 2009; Grenard, Le Bot, and Perrin, 2017).

A core question is thus determining the extent to which the institutional study of the economic and academic fields sheds light on the specific theoretical content of the period. This content is notably distinctive regarding its relation to facts, methods, and the role of expertise within the French context, as well as its place within the broader theoretical discussions occurring simultaneously across Europe.

Regarding the growing use of tools such as statistics by economists, the Vichy period accelerated a movement already underway in the 1930s. This acceleration was achieved both through the creation of new institutions (e.g., the Service National de Statistique, which absorbed Alfred Sauvy’s Statistique Nationale de France) and through an expansion of available economic data. Specifically, the planning structure implemented by the regime (organized around the occupational committees and justified by the imperatives of an occupation economy) provided unprecedented access to corporate data previously unavailable. Thus, the foundations of a statistical system serving economic policy and expertise emerged under Vichy. We will examine how access to new data influenced theoretical economic practices.

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