Albert Aftalion's Macrodynamic Theory of Endogenous Business Cycles

Albert Aftalion is certainly one of the best known French economists of the first half of the twentieth century. The influence he exerted during his lifetime over the scientific community of his homeland was considerable, and he was promptly acknowledged abroad to be one of the leading theorists of the business cycle. While he is best known as one of the inventors of the acceleration principle (Haberler 1937), we will focus on Aftalion's endogenous explanation of non-monetary business cycles and, more specifically, on the theoretical framework supporting Les crises périodiques de surproduction. Though this work can be seen as a mere “(desperate) attempt” to reconcile the law of markets with general overproduction (Abraham-Frois 1987), we argue instead that Aftalion's failure to construct an equilibrium theory of aggregate overproduction can be traced back to his inadequate treatment of aggregate demand. According to him, long roundabout processes are what generate cyclical fluctuations within a setting in which commodities produced and brought to the market always find an outlet. In other words, the law of markets implies market clearing where declines in prices instead of involuntary stock-building occur in the event of a crisis. How demand behaves in such a setting requires careful specification, which is precisely what is lacking in Aftalion's model.