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Colloque des 3 et 4 octobre 2002 sous la direction scientifique de Maurice Levy-Leboyer Entre 1870 et la fin du XXe siecle, la France passe progressivement du statut de grande puissance economique, financiere et monetaire a celui de puissance moyenne cherchant son nouveau souffle dans l'Union europeenne. Sur cette periode, quelle a ete la pertinence des choix monetaires de la France au regard de sa performance economique a l'echelle internationale ? Dans quelle mesure ces choix francais ont-ils ete judicieux sur le plan economique par rapport a ceux de nos voisins europeens ? Quelles en ont ete les consequences, pour les divers secteurs industriels et financiers, pour les entreprises francaises, avant et a compter de la reouverture economique de la France a la concurrence internationale ? Les etudes d'historiens et d'economistes de renommee internationale reunies dans le present volume s'articulent autour de trois grandes periodes : la position francaise au debut du XXe siecle ; les crises et le repli francais de la guerre de 1914 aux annees 1950 ; la reouverture aux echanges depuis les annees 1960. Elles mettent en perspective les differentes politiques monetaires conduites par les pouvoirs publics (stabilite du franc, depreciations, franc fort, passage a l'euro...) avec l'evolution des positions commerciales des entreprises francaises. Pour evaluer les resultats economiques de la France, le recours a des comparaisons internationales se montre ici particulierement pertinent, en raison notamment de politiques parfois divergentes incluant l'usage ou non du regime monetaire comme instrument d'ajustement exterieur et interieur. (presentation editeur)

Alan S. Milward was an economic historian who developed an implicit theory of historical change. His interpretation which was neither liberal nor Marxist posited that social, political, and economic change, for it to be sustainable, had to be a gradual process rather than one resulting from a sudden, cataclysmic revolutionary event occurring in one sector of the economy or society. Benign change depended much less on natural resource endowment or technological developments than on the ability of state institutions to respond to changing political demands from within each society. State bureaucracies were fundamental to formulating those political demands and advising politicians of ways to meet them. Since each society was different there was no single model of development to be adopted or which could be imposed successfully by one nation-state on others, either through force or through foreign aid programs. Nor could development be promoted simply by copying the model of a more successful economy. Each nation-state had to find its own response to the political demands arising from within its society. Integration occurred when a number of nation states shared similar political objectives which they could not meet individually but could meet collectively. It was not simply the result of their increasing interdependence. It was how and whether nation-states responded to these domestic demands which determined the nature of historical change.