Différences entre les versions de « Friedrich A. Hayek:Economics and Knowledge »

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{{titre|Economics and Knowledge|[[Friedrich A. Hayek]]|Presidential address delivered before the London Economic Club; November 10 1936; Reprinted from ''Economica'' IV (new ser., 1937), 33-54.}}

THE ambiguity of the title of this paper is not accidental. Its main subject is, of course, the role which assumptions and propositions about the knowledge possessed by the different members of society play in economic analysis. But this is by no means unconnected with the other question which might be discussed under the same title--the question to what extent formal economic analysis conveys any knowledge about what happens in the real world. Indeed, my main contention will be that the tautologies, of which formal equilibrium analysis in economics essentially consists, can be turned into propositions which tell us anything about causation in the real world only in so far as we are able to fill those formal propositions with definite statements about how knowledge is acquired and communicated. In short, I shall contend that the empirical element in economic theory--the only part which is concerned not merely with implications but with causes and effects and which leads therefore to conclusions which, at any rate in principle, are capable of verification -- consists of propositions about the acquisition of knowledge[1] .

      

* [20] This would be one, but probably not yet a sufficient, condition to insure that, with a given state of demand, the marginal productivity of the different factors of production in their different uses should be equalized and that in this sense an equilibrium of production should be brought about. That it is not necessary, as one might think, that every possible alternative use of any kind of resources should be known to at least one among the owners of each group of such resources which are used for one particular purpose is due to the fact that the alternatives known to the owners of the resources in a particular use are reflected in the prices of these resources. In this way it may be a suflicient distribution of knowledge of the alternative uses, m, n, o, . . . y, z, of a commodity, if A, who uses the quantity of these resources in his possession for m knows of n, and B, who uses his for n, knows of m, while C, who uses his for o, knows of n, etc., until we get to L, who uses his for z, but knows only of y. I am not clear to what e*tent in addition to this a particular distribution of the knowledge of the different proportions is required in which different factors can be combined in the production of any one commodity. For complete equilibrium additional assumptions will be required about the knowledge which consumers possess about the serviceability of the commodities for the satisfaction of their wants.  

{{Friedrich A. Hayek}}

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