The substance of conventions in economics (of convention)

Prof. Dr. Guillemette de Larquier (Universität Lille/CLERSÉ)

Im Rahmen des Kolloquiums Sozialforschung (organisiert von Prof. Dr. Rainer Diaz-Bone und Guy Schwegler)

Datum: 5. Oktober 2022
Zeit: 16.15 Uhr bis 17.45 Uhr
Ort: via Zoom

Zoom-Meeting beitreten
https://unilu.zoom.us/j/64496344887?pwd=QThTekZ1dEczVk5LZ1RhM2VGdGhqdz09

Meeting-ID: 644 9634 4887
Kenncode: 999498

Economics of convention (EC) became visible with the special issue of la Revue économique published in 1989, entitled “Économie des conventions.” It is remarkable that all the authors, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Olivier Favereau, André Orléan, Robert Salais, and Laurent Thévenot, except François Eymard-Duvernay, cited in their respective articles the notions of convention developed by the philosopher David Lewis in 1969 and the economist John Maynard Keynes in 1936. These are clearly the economic references of EC. They have in common to study situations characterized by an infinite specularity of individual reasoning, and confronting the two approaches lead to question the hypothesis of rationality that was best suited to the plurality of coordination studied by EC (Diaz-Bone and Larquier, 2022).
My communication will follow this economic entry of EC. Actually, the concept of conventions leads economists to ask themselves three questions: 1/ What type of uncertainty (of the coordination)? 2/ What type of rationality (of the individuals)? What type of normativity (of the conventions)? The answers to these three questions reveal what the substance of a convention is for David Lewis (and Robert Sugden), for John Maynard Keynes and for EC. Also, it will be of great interest to understand what each approach can say about the dynamics of conventions.