The Politics of Funding: the Rockefeller Foundation and French Economics, 1945–1955

Serge Benest (1, 2)

1 CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations (Sciences Po, CNRS)
2 UB - Universitat de Barcelona

Following World War II, the director of the social sciences division at the Rockefeller Foundation, the industrial economist Joseph H. Willits, thought it important to extend its activities to Europe, especially France. His agenda was to strengthen institutional economics and to create modern research centers with a view to stabilizing the political situation. In the postwar decade, almost all economic research centers in France were funded by the Foundation, which helped provide greater autonomy to French economists within academia but failed to reshape French economic training and research.

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences; Economies et finances; Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Serge Benest. The Politics of Funding: the Rockefeller Foundation and French Economics, 1945–1955. Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2022, 44 (3), pp.323 - 343. ⟨10.1017/s1053837221000274⟩. ⟨hal-03779060⟩