Bank Credit and the Creation of Deposits: the Original Contribution of Émile Mireaux
p. 235-246
Texte intégral
1The purpose of this paper is to investigate the credit theory of the French economist Émile Mireaux (1885-1969)1. Mireaux actively participated in the French monetary debate during the interwar years. Nevertheless, current literature has overlooked his contribution to the monetary theory of that period. This oversight is very serious in the light of Mentor Bouniatian’s belief that Mireaux’s Les Miracles du crédit (1930) could be likened to the main works of Hawtrey and Keynes in England as well as those works of Schumpeter and Hahn in Germany2.
2During the 1920s, Mireaux turned his attention to interpreting the most important economic events of the period: financial crises, high levels of inflation, volatile swings in exchange rates, high rate of unemployment. He commented on many aspects of economic theory but his interest became increasingly concentrated on banking activity. Paraphrasing Hicks, it could be argued that for Mireaux « monetary theory was less abstract than most economic theory; it could not avoid a relation to reality, which in other economic theory was sometimes missing » (Hicks, 1967, p. 156).
3Mireaux was an attentive observer of contemporary monetary events; yet he was frustrated by the interpretations of these events given by traditional theory3. He investigated the workings of the modem banking system and discovered a profound change in the « mechanism of credit creation ». However, he could not identify sound explanations for the observed transformations in existing economic theory. He perceived in his contemporaries a lack of regard for economic events. Several years later, Henri Guitton commented upon the approach to economics used by 1930s French scholars and argued that « [...] too many of them often paid little attention to current or past events. Firstly, they wanted to discover the deep, hence invisible mechanisms that seemed to govern these events. They thought that the abstract controlled the concrete » (Guitton, 1973, p. 16)4.
4 By contrast Mireaux was searching for arguments « always supported irresistibly by theory as well as experience » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 107). Therefore, he decided to write Les Miracles du crédit, a small book in which he tackled the analysis of the « moving forces of modem credit organisation ».
5The paper is divided in three sections. Firstly, the French monetary debate in the interwar period is outlined to provide the reader with an overview of the main issues debated at the time of Mireaux’s Les Miracles du credit (1930). Secondly, the circulation of bank deposits and its link with saving is examined. A bank deposits multiplier approach is proposed by Mireaux to explain the volume of bank deposits in circulation. Finally, the different nature and origin of bank deposits and saving is clarified.
1. French monetary debate in the interwar period
6The theoretical debate in France at the beginning of the century exhibits particular features that make the French situation very interesting to examine5. Most of the more eminent economists of the period were working in France. As Schumpeter observed in his History of economic analysis (1954), « [...] counting peak performances only, we might feel inclined to put French economics at the head of all countries. But, excepting those of the factual branch, the peak achievements almost entirely failed to percolate, and there were hardly any symptoms of that wider activity that makes up lost ground so rapidly in our own day » (Schumpeter, 1954, p. 840).
7The poor reputation of French economists is mainly explained by their « political affiliations ». Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, Levasseur, Gustave de Molinari and Colson amongst them, were known as the Paris group because of their influence on the most important institutions (e.g. the Collège de France) as well as on the most distinguished journals in the capital (e.g. the Journal des économistes). Their main interest was not the « purely scientific aspect of economics » but business and political practice (Schumpeter, 1954, p. 841).
8The economic and social situation in France was changing at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the same time, a group of young economists was emerging and despite the fact that they had never engaged in debate with other foreign schools6, their theoretical contributions gained international relevance. Gide, Rist, Aftalion, Nogaro as well as other economists linked to the old Paris group, like Rueff and Divisia, promoted an intense debate, especially in monetary theory, which found its way into a new journal, the Revue d’économie politique.
9The debate focused on the nature and functions of money. Rist (1899- 1955), one of the most eminent economists of the period, attached great importance to the distinction between money, meaning gold money, and credit or fiduciary money, meaning bank notes and bank deposits7. To him only the former was money because only gold money serves as a store of value. Such views were also shared by the majority of the French economists.
10In the same way, most economists maintained the classical dichotomy between the monetary and the real sectors. Rueff (1897-1978) and Rist (1933) were two of the most enthusiastic proponents of the classical dichotomy. They asserted that all essential economic phenomena can be described in terms of relations between goods and services, and money is only a technical device adopted in order to facilitate transactions. In other words, their models of the economic process were essentially barter models.
11Although the French debate in the interwar period carried on the main arguments of the neo-classical tradition, some economists were able to produce an alternative model of a monetary economy. For instance, Aftalion (1874- 1956) and Nogaro (1880-1950) stressed the importance of money in the explanation of the economic process. For them, money was not a veil over the real economy. The economic events of the period lent support to their arguments and cast doubt on the validity of those arguments put forward by their colleagues.
12Similar ideas to those of Nogaro and Aftalion were being advanced independently, and outside established academia, by Mireaux. In some aspects his work proved more far-reaching than that of Nogaro and Aftalion. Mireaux’s theory arose from his daily activities as an economic analyst8. A well-known practitioner of his time argued that « [all] his works were considered, developed, deep. In these writings one can distinguish the works concerned with economics and born, as it were, through the impetus given by current events » (Francois-Poncet, 1971, p. 7)9.
13Mireaux’s theories were also well appreciated in the political arena. The well-known governor of the Bank of France, Émile Moreaux, in his Souvenirs d’un gouverneur de la Banque de France (1954) paid tribute to the role of Mireaux as one of the most influential economic advisers of Raymond Poincaré during his governments in the 1920s.
14All in all, Mireaux’s work is not the complete exposition of a new theory but instead a corpus of interesting insights – as original as it is essential for the development of an alternative paradigm in monetary theory – formulated in order to provide an answer to the most important economic problems of the interwar period in France. In Austria and Britain the involvement of scholars in practical matters did not diminish the perceived academic worth of their theories. However, in France, possibly due to the legacy of the nineteenth century economists, the academic community detached itself from political involvement and rejected the value of practically based research. Thus this particular feature of the French academic community would help to explain why Mireaux has been overlooked in the history of monetary theory.
2. Bank deposits multiplier approach: « comment circule l’ argent de banque? »
15Émile Mireaux opens Les Miracles du crédit (1930) proclaiming that the main aim of his book is to study the underlying mechanism giving rise to the modem organisation of credit10. He claimed that some confusion had arisen between credit in the sense of bank deposits and credit in the sense of saving. Thus, he explored the nature of bank deposits and saving, and how and why economic agents discriminate between these two sources of finance. In his words, « ... no other distinction is more necessary to an understanding of credit matters than this one » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 67)11.
16The distinction between bank deposits and saving has to be understood in two ways: firstly, in the sense that the circulation of bank deposits is explained without any reference to saving, and secondly in the sense that the formation of saving is without effect on the amount of bank deposits supplied at each time. In the following section, the mechanism of the distribution of deposits is investigated while in the next section the different origin and nature of bank deposits and saving are examined.
17Mireaux proposed a « petit voyage en Utopie »: he imagines that one day a group of people decides to emigrate to a fantasy place called Utopia. That group, together with their commodities, brings a certain amount of gold in order to create a central bank, the Bank of Utopia. Mireaux also assumes that those people undertake economic transactions half by bank notes and half by cheque. Furthermore, according to their habits the group of emigrants settles in Utopia and creates a commercial bank – the Credit of Utopia – to support economic activity. The Bank of Utopia supplies 1000 million monetary units in return for the initial gold. At the same time, given their habits, economic agents return half of that amount to the Credit of Utopia and use the remaining part of it for settling transactions.
18It is useful to present Mireaux’s theory by way of a series of tables. Table 1 illustrates initial assumptions in terms of the balance sheet of the Credit of Utopia:
Table 1
Credit of Utopia
Liabilities | Assets | ||
Deposits | 500 | Reserves | 500 |
19In accordance with the usual banking conventions, the Credit of Utopia reserves 1/10 of the deposits and lends out all remaining banknotes to the borrowers. In terms of the asset side of the balance sheet, there are 50 million reserves and 450 million new deposits (Table 2).
Table 2
Credit of Utopia
Liabilities | Assets | ||
Old deposits | 500 | Old reserves Loans | 50 450 |
20Again, economic agents return half of that amount to the commercial bank and by transferring deposits use the remaining part of it. Then, the balance sheet of the Credit of Utopia is as shown in Table 3.
Table 3
Credit of Utopia
Liabilities | Assets | ||
Old deposits | 500.0 | Old reserves | 50.0 |
New deposits | 225.0 | Loans | 450.0 |
New reserves | 22.5 | ||
New loans | 202.5 |
21For 275 million reserves we have 725 million deposits. This is to say that there is an excess of reserves, hence a new supply of deposit of 202.5 millions and so on. At the end of the process we will have the situation represented in Table 4:
Table 4
Credit of Utopia
Liabilities | Assets | ||
Deposits | 909 | Reserves | 91 |
Loans | 818 | ||
Total | 909 | Total | 909 |
22Then, Mireaux formulates an equation to calculate the total amount of deposits in a modem banking system:

23where D is the volume of bank deposits, E is the monetary base, 1/a is the minimum reserve ratio and n is the ratio of bank deposits over cash (notes and coin). Hence, according to Mireaux the potential volume of bank deposits in a country is a multiple of its monetary base (E is for the French word Emission). In the case of the Credit of Utopia, E is equal to 1 000 million monetary units, the reserve ratio is 1/10 and n is equal to 1. Then, the volume of bank deposits created is 909 million monetary units.
24For Mireaux it was also evident that in a pure credit economy, that is in the case agents settle negotiations by transferring deposits and ignoring the use of cash (therefore the reserve ratio loses meaning), the banking system can create an unlimited volume of deposits: « In a country where payments by cheque, by transfer from one account to another, increase substantially at the expense of payments in cash, there develops a spontaneous creation of deposits, that is credit. This creation is automatic, irresistible, independent of human will and needs. Theoretically, it is infinite » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 139)12.
25Nevertheless, Mireaux is aware that what is true for the banking system as a whole is not valid for the single bank. A single banker does not have the capacity to create an infinite amount of deposits because he must confront the possibility that some of his customers could move their deposits to another bank. This means that the banker must back his lending activity with a certain amount of reserves. « On the other hand we should point out that the percentage of reserves can fall as his bank becomes more powerful » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 180)13.
26A single bank can be in a deficit position when some credit borrowers transfer their bank deposit to agents that have deposits in another bank. Therefore, the bigger is the size of a bank the lower is the chance that agents move deposits to other banks. Then, a reduction in the risk that a bank faces losses produces a decrease in the reserve requirement.
27Thus, Mireaux concludes that from a theoretical point of view « ... no formation of saving has taken place. The citizens of Utopia have contented themselves with making their current payments in the manner which they were accustomed to. Explanations about saving-deposit would not, therefore, play any part in such circumstances » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 56)14.
28Mireaux has in this way established that the circulation of bank deposits is completely independent of the saving made by economic agents. « For a given initial creation of money », the banker makes a continuous circuit of receipts and cash disbursements according current customs in the use of means of payments.
3. On the different nature and origin of bank deposits and saving
29In order to complete his investigation on the workings of the modem banking system, Mireaux analyses the impact of an increase in saving on the volume of bank deposits. Saving takes different forms according to the habits of each consumer. However, Mireaux argued that it is possible to draw a general picture of the behaviour of an economic agent.
30In the case of an individual who saved all his income in a bank account, saving means to postpone the use of deposits for future expenditures. He could switch money between different deposit accounts, e.g. from sight deposits to time deposits, in order to earn a higher interest rate, but that decision does not affect the amount of deposits controlled by the banker. As Mireaux remarked, it is one thing to move money between deposits but another to create new ones (Mireaux, 1930, p. 68).
31It is also possible the case of an individual who disregarded the use of a bank account and kept all his money in bank notes. On such event his saving took the form of « wads of bank notes stuffed under his pillow ». Again that decision does not affect the quantity of deposits controlled by bankers.
32Finally, an individual through the intermediation of banks could use his saving to buy securities in the financial market. Then, the individual should ask a bank to purchase a certain volume of securities and the bank should negotiate that purchase with other banks. Thus at the end of the process, by the intermediation of banks, individuals exchanged securities against notes or deposits. Banks received a remuneration for their services but the total amount of deposits that they controlled did not change. Thus, the decision of an individual to invest his saving in securities has only produced a rearrangement of the portfolios of economic agents: « The payments corresponding to these outlays will be hypothesised to be made half by cheque and half by cash. The result of the former will be, once again, to change the deposits’s holders. While the latter will put the notes back into the circulation » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 71)15.
33From this, it seems obvious that the circulation of deposits is not affected by an increase of saving. However, Mireaux investigates reality to find support for his analysis. In particular he is interested in the role of new financial instruments and their impact on the economic process.
34He assumed that an individual at a certain moment increased his saving and lent it to a saving bank, a special banking institution collecting saving from economic agents and investing it in securities. This institution acted as « agent of placement », i.e. it used agents’s saving for making long-run credit. In other words, it was as if all saving bank customers were owners of that special bank (Mireaux, 1930, p. 79).
35Mireaux then discriminates between the different nature of bank deposits and saving deposits. Saving deposits cannot be used directly by the owner to make his expenditure. To settle his purchases with such deposits an individual would have to transform them into some special asset that was accepted as a medium of exchange. Saving deposits were not means of payment. Rather to make transactions a system of rules and institutions emerged to regulate exchange of good and services between individuals16.
36Furthermore Mireaux challenges the idea that money is a commodity. He argues at length that money derives its value from the general confidence of individuals for settling negotiations. For instance, gold as metallic money has its value in people’s belief in the « permanence of the principles and the institutions upon which rests the financial organisation of nations » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 250) rather than in its intrinsic value as precious metal17. « In order to be used as a means of payment, the saving deposit must first be transformed; it must return to the money market and draw from this market the liquidity which it does not itself possess to any degree » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 80)18.
37The different role that saving and bank deposits plays in the economic process reinforces Mireaux’s argument that the quantity of bank deposits in the economic process is not affected by the decision of economic agents to increase or decrease the amount of saving. « The volume of bank credit which exists in a country is, therefore, independent of the volume of saving in the same country. The fluctuations of the latter have no effect on the volume of the former. Short-term credit originating from banks, and long-term credit originating from saving are two totally distinct phenomena » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 73)19.
38Saving reflects the choice of economic agents to devote part of the income to future consumption, whereas bank deposits mainly represent agents’s demand of working capital for future production. Bankers accommodate that demand since they are in the business of making credit. That being the case, it is not surprising to discover that the domain of bank credit is completely separate from the domain of saving. The kingdom of bank credit is one of short-run credit. By contrast, saving is used only for long-run credit.
39The apparent similarity of the terms and the common principles at the base of the concept of credit can create some misunderstandings of the different roles of the two different categories of credit. However, Mireaux admonishes that « ... in a modem financial economy, the economic function of the one and of the other [i.e. short-term credit and long-term credit] have grown to be quite distinct. Between the two of them, there is now more than a difference in duration; there is a genuine difference in their nature » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 66)20.
40Saving is used to buy securities in the financial market, i.e., shares and bonds. By contrast the supply of deposits can take different forms: the discount of IOU or advances in current account; but what is important is that bank deposits are means of payment which can be used to make current economic transactions. In other words, bank deposits are money for all purposes; by nature they are a « valeur monétaire circulante » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 81). « In this way, banking credit can present itself in a variety of ways at each successive stage: credit for the purchase of raw materials; credit for equipment...; credit for working capital which enables the producer to pay wages; finally credit for sales... » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 155)21.
Conclusion
41Émile Mireaux actively participated in the 1920’s and 1930’s French monetary debate. As an attentive observer of contemporary monetary events he was encouraged to investigate the credit supply process and explore the different nature and origin of bank deposits and saving. The main results of his investigation can be summarised in two points.
421. The circulation of bank deposits is completely independent of saving made by economic agents. The volume of bank credit in circulation is explained through a deposit multiplier analysis.
432. The formation of saving is without effect on the amount of bank deposits supplied at each time. Bank deposits are means of payment and are mainly used by entrepreneurs to bridge the gap between production and sale of goods. By contrast saving is not a mean of payment and is used to buy financial securities, which provide the income for firms to purchase capital goods.
Acknowledgements
44The author is grateful to the many people who commented on earlier versions of this paper: Annie Cot, Pierre Dockès, Bill Gerrard, Augusto Graziani, Alain Parguez, Riccardo Realfonzo, Sergio Rossi, Malcolm Sawyer, and participants at the 1997 ESHET (European Society of History of Economic Thought, Marseille, February) Conference and the 1997 Association Charles Gide Conference (Lyon, October). The author owes a special debt to Leslie Dicks-Mireaux who has generously devoted time and efforts to bibliographical research on Mireaux. Finally, special thanks to Gary Slater and Dave Spencer whose careful reading helped to improve the paper. The usual disclaimer applies. The author also gratefully acknowledge a research scholarship from the Ente per gli Studi Monetari Bancari e Finanziari « Luigi Einaudi » (Italy).
Bibliographie
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References bibliographiques
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Notes de bas de page
1 Mireaux’s life is a very unusual one. After having completed classic studies at the prestigious École Normale Superieure he undertook important missions as officer during the First World War. For his heroic conduct, and with the impassioned support of General Rollet, he was elected chevalier of the Legion d’honneur. At the end of the war, he returned as a teacher (agrégé preparateur) to the « vieille maison de la rue d’Ulm ». However, his superiors took time to acknowledge his abilities. This annoyed him greatly; thus he decided to look for a career outside the public sector. At the same time the transformation of society attracted his attention. Thus, he shifted his attention to economics in order to understand and offer solutions to economic problems of the interwar period (e.g. the inflationary boom 1914-1926). He held an important role as founder of the Société d’études et d’informations economiques (1922), then as its director (1924-1933). During these years he wrote Petite histoire des finances du Cartel (1928), L’Expérience financière de M. Poincaré (1928), Le Contrôle du crédit par le Federal Reserve Board (1929), and La Gestion publique et la Gestion privee des entreprises (1929). He was also general secretary (1929-1937) and later president of the Société d’économie politique (1937-1940). At the end of 1935 he was elected senator of the Upper Pyrénées, a position that he held until 1944. He actively participated to political debate and during the government of the maréchal Petain (1940) he was Minister of Education. In 1940, he took the place of Clément Colson at the economic section of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. During the last years of his life he wrote about economics as well as classic literature.
2 Bouniatian (1933, 5-10). More recently Guitton (1973, p. 19) compared Mireaux’s 1930 book to The meaning of money (2nd ed., 1909) of Hartley Withers.
3 The French economy at the end of the nineteenth century underwent a rapid process of industrialisation and urbanisation, while the role of banks greatly expanded: the money supply grew on average by 3 per cent a year between 1890 and 1913, the growth of bank deposits explaining 69 per cent of that overall increase (Lescure, 1995). Indeed the share of bank deposits to money supply, which had been less than 22 per cent in 1890, reached 43.2 per cent in 1910. Similar progress was recorded on the assets side of banks’ balance sheet. Loans and advances (especially to metropolitan large or medium-sized enterprises) rose from 15 per cent of national income in 1890 to 30.1 per cent in 1913. The subsequent inter-war period was dominated by the inflation boom (1914-1926). The reconversion of industrial capacity, and the growing advances of the Banque de France to the State, produced a sharp increase in fiduciary issues. At the same time, banks experienced difficulties in facing the persistent decline in their capital funds. As a result of these events, and against the fluctuations in the value of the franc, the banking system moved to more liquid portfolio positions. Deposits and bank credits to enterprises decreased in real terms by 30 per cent. At the same time total lending fell from 33.4 per cent of national income in 1913 to 18.6 per cent in 1926. Large industrial corporations in order to overcome the limits of those deficiencies in the banking system created several banks and financial branches. Finally, in the late 1920s, given the stabilisation of the franc by Poincaré and the inflow of foreign capital, banks lending increased and new facilities were offered to firms, e.g. acceptance credit (Lescure, 1995).
4 It should be noted that throughout this paper all French quotations have been translated. However, the latter are provided, for consultation, in the footnotes: [... un trap grand nombre s’intéressent souvent peu aux evenements qu’ils vivent ou qu’ont vécus leurs devanciers. Ils veulent d’abord découvrir les enchaînements profonds et donc invisible qui leur paraissent dominer ces evenements. L’abstrait leur semble commander le concret (Guitton, 1973, 16)].
5 Realfonzo (1996) provides an excellent account of the interwar debate on monetary theory in different countries.
6 Myrdal in his Monetary Equilibrium (1939, [1931]) criticises English economists for being unaware of the Swedish school. Marchal and Lecaillon (1967, p. 241) extend that criticism to French economists. Furthermore, they maintain that at the beginning of the century the situation was no better between the English school and French school.
7 With respect to this point, Schumpeter (1954) was very critical of Rist for his misunderstanding of the nature of credit.
8 For instance, at the beginning of the 1920’s Mireaux accepted François-Poncet’s proposal to join him in the development of the new-established Société d’études et d’informations économiques. A few years later he became an economic analyst and then director with Jacques Chastenet of the well-known Le Temps. Those years forged Mireaux’s theory in economics. He collected, discussed and diffused information on the most important economic events in France as well as in other countries. He elaborated his monetary theory on the daily page of the Bulletin quotidien of the Societe d’etudes et d’informations économiques. In this respect, Guitton (1973) acknowledged Mireaux as one of the first « analysts of economic news ».
9 « Tout ce qu’il ecrivait etait reflechi, construit, approfondi. Dans cette production on peut distinguer les ecrits qui relevent de l’économie politique et qui naissaient, en quelque sorte, sous l’impulsion de l’actualite... » (Francois-Poncet, 1971, p. 7).
10 Mireaux used the term credit in a very extensive way. He offered a functional definition of credit as « the disposal of a good or the availability of an amount of money against the promise of payment or reimbursement » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 9). Then, he incisively went on to discriminate between short-run credit and long-run credit.
11 « [...] aucune distinction n’est plus nécessaire a l’intelligence de la matière du crédit » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 67).
12 « Dans un pays où les paiements par chèque, par virement de compte a compte se multiplient aux dépens des paiements par espèces, il se fait une création spontanée de dépôts, e’est-a-dire de crédit. Cette création est automatique, irrésistible, indépendante de la volonté des hommes et des besoins. Elle est theoriquement illimitee » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 139).
13 « Remarquons d’autre part que la proportion de son encaisse a ses dépôts pourra être plus faible que son etablissement sera plus puissant » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 180).
14 « [...] aucune creation d’épargne n’est intervenue. Les citoyens d’Utopie se sont hornés à effectuer leurs paiements courants dans la forme dont ils avaient déjà l’habitude. L’explication du dépôt-épargne ne saurait done jouer aucun rôle en la circonstance » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 56).
15 « Les paiements correspondant à ces dépenses seront, par hypothese, effectues moitié par chèque, moitié par espèces. Les premiers n’auront pour résultat que de faire une fois encore changer les dépôts de titulaires. Quant aux seconds, ils remettront les billets en circulation dans le public » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 71).
16 Davidson has put forward the link between contracts and money. He argued that contracts are « essential to the phenomenon of money, and the existence of institutions which can enforce the discharge of contractual commitments for future action are essential in providing trust in the future operation of the monetary system » (Davidson, 1972, p. 147).
17 Chick (1992) and Graziani (1994) debate at lenght on the meaning of money as a commodity.
18 « Pour être utilisé comme moyen de paiement, le dépôt d’épargne doit d’abord etre transformé; il doit revenir sur le marché monétaire et puiser dans ce marché une disponibilite liquide que lui-meme ne represente à aucun degre » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 80).
19 « La quantite de crédit bancaire qui existe dans un pays est donc indépendante de la quantite d’épargne qui se forme dans ce même pays. Les variations de la seconde restent sans effet sur le volume du premier. Le crédit à court terme d’origine bancaire et le crédit à long terme qui a pour source l’epargne sont deux phénomènes parfaitement distincts » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 73).
20 « ... les rôles économiques de l’une et de l’autre se sont, dans l’economie financiere moderne, profondément distingués. Il y a désormais entre elles plus qu’une différence de durée, une véritable différence de nature » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 66).
21 « Le crédit bancaire peut ainsi se présenter aux étapes successives sous des apparences diverses: crédit d’achat de matières premières; crédit d’outillage...; credit de fabrication qui permet au producteur de payer ses salaires; credit de vente enfin... » (Mireaux, 1930, p. 155).
Auteur
-
Giuseppe Fontana
Universite de Leeds
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Le rôle politique des ulémas chiites à la fin de la domination ottomane et au moment de la création de l’état irakien
Pierre-Jean Luizard
2002
La télévision des Trente Glorieuses
Culture et politique
Évelyne Cohen et Marie-Françoise Lévy (dir.)
2007
L’homme et sa diversité
Perspectives en enjeux de l’anthropologie biologique
Anne-Marie Guihard-Costa, Gilles Boetsch et Alain Froment (dir.)
2007