Abstract

BERTA, Nathalie. Axiomatic assertions and interpretation in Gérard Debreu: the case of the market. Inv. Econ [online]. 1999, vol.59, n.230, pp.83-98. ISSN 0185-1667.

Although the neoclassical theory has as its main objective the study of the market as the theoretical place of the formation of prices and the coordination of individual activities, it is interesting to notice that it is almost absent, as such, in Gérard Debreu's writings. This article is meant to show, on the one hand, that this absence is tightly linked with the status given by Debreu to economic interpretations of an axiomatised theory and, on the other, that the rare mentions of the term market are quite circumstantial and are generally made in reference to a fictitious agent, meant to incarnate the market in the model.