| Originally founded in 1990 at the University of Lausanne by Pascal Bridel as a Centre for research into the history of economics with special attention to the Lausanne School of Economics, the Walras-Pareto Centre (CWP) merged in January 2014 with the Centre for the history of political thought (CHIPI) to gain its present form as a leading interdisciplinary Centre in the history of economic and political thought in Europe. The Centre studies both disciplines in relation to its teaching mission at the three universities in Francophone Switzerland (Geneva, Lausanne, and Neuchâtel), and Lausanne's federal polytechnic university EPFL. We are interested in the historical development of economic and political ideas and methods, the institutional and material settings in which these ideas and methods are produced and used, and their social and normative implications and impact. We approach these three dimensions through historical and epistemological research along disciplinary lines, and through research that considers the economic and the political in their mutual interactions. In addition, the Centre considers the publication of key-texts in the history of both disciplines an important part of its mission, as shown by the edition of the OEuvres économiques complètes of Auguste and Léon Walras, the recent six volume edition of Simonde de Sismondi's OEuvres économiques completes, an anthology (in Italian) of Adam Smith's writings, or the English edition of Benjamin Constant's political writings in the Cambridge texts collection on political thought. |
