The Development of Financial Economics in France between the Mid-1970s and the Early 1980s: Import or Rediscovery?

To date, little research has documented the international diffusion of financial economics. Financial economics was supposedly “introduced” in France in the 1970s. Some analysts have argued that it is an American author—Leonard J. Savage—who allowed French authors to rediscover Louis Bachelier’s work, indicating that “a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country.” The present article challenges this conventional narrative and studies for the first time how financial economics was disseminated in France between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. It shows that, when financial economics was “imported” from the United States in France in 1970s, some pioneering French contributions have been taught for almost a century. Based on this result, the article explains why the French authors who disseminated these ideas rarely referred to the works of French forerunners. It also clarifies the role of the French economists in this process. All of this suggests that the “import” of financial economics in France was in fact a reintroduction.