Maurice Allais and the French Marginalist School
回顾了二战后法国边际主义学派在资源配置理论上的突破，包括理论扩展、政策操作指南及在法国公共部门的实际应用，对经济学思想产生了持久影响。
1. During the first decade immediately following World War II, an extremely interesting and important episode in the history of economics occurred in France. This episode, informally identified with the work of the Marginalist School, consisted in the development and imple- mentation of an operational theory of efficient resource allocation. The episode has several distinguishing features which make it a rather unique event and place it among the major instances of definitive progress in our discipline. In short,' the significance of the episode refers to the discovery that the abstract theory of efficient resource allocation could be given a precise general statement, susceptible to interpretation in operational terms and suitable for direct application to a variety of important practical problems. The work under review covers (i) the general statement of the theory and its extension to new areas not previously investigated (in particular, inter- temporal allocation and problems associated with increasing returns to scale or uncertainty); (ii) the translation of general principles into operational guidelines for public policy (in particular, for managing public utilities, implementing marginal cost pricing in situations involving peak loads or indivisibilities, and defining efficient pricing and investment decisions simultaneously); and (iii) the actual application of these guide- lines in the public sector of the French economy. There are not many instances where three successive steps such as these could be carried out almost simultaneously over a short time span. Beyond the event itself, and its immediate by-product in terms of efficiency gains in the French public sector, this episode has exerted a lasting influence on economic thinking at three levels, corresponding to the three steps just outlined.