Collections

The Walras-Pareto Centre is the custodian, either alone or jointly with the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne (BCUL), of several collections of printed materials and manuscripts.

One of the tasks of historians of economic thought is to promote the use of archive collections. Members of the CWP worked together on rediscovering the Walras collection and producing an electronic catalogue of its contents. They also contributed to the publication of the Complete Works of Auguste and Léon Walras, particularly with regard to the documentary sections. They published one of the first lectures given by Pareto, along with the last volumes of the Complete Works. More recently, the Centre has become the custodian of the Juglar Collection, which has been inventoried, and a part of the Scalfati legacy.

The archive collections of the Walras-Pareto Centre are accessible to external researchers by appointment. The collections available in Lausanne are listed below:

The Manuscripts Department of the BCUL and the Walras-Pareto Centre have worked together since 1990 on producing a detailed inventory of the Walras Collection. The hierarchy of the collection is as follows:

• Correspondence ... series I-II-III
• Biographical pieces ... series IV
• Manuscripts of works and articles by L. Walras ... series V
• Archives of the journal Le Travail ... series VI
• Printed works by L. Walras ... series VII
• Unclassified articles by L. Walras ... series VIII
• Printed materials and press cuttings on L. Walras and his works ... series IX
• Works by A. Walras ... series X
• Miscellaneous printed materials... series XI
• Non-inventoried supplement ... series XII

Printed documents and Léon Walras’ personal library are held at the Walras-Pareto Centre, while manuscripts are held at the BCUL. A detailed inventory of each series can be viewed at the centre.

A significant proportion of the collection’s manuscripts has been published in the Complete Economic Works of Auguste and Léon Walras. Some of the printed works (IX and XI) have been published in Le Chêne et l’Architecte and others are in preparation for Le Chêne et le Socialiste. Even today, in spite of the importance of the published material, the Léon Walras Collection is consulted by researchers, for example for the few unpublished pieces of correspondence which escaped William Jaffé at the time, and works in the Walras library, which are sometimes annotated.

The Vilfredo Pareto Collection in the Manuscripts Department of the BCUL was essential for the publication of Pareto’s Complete Works. The Walras-Pareto Centre is home to the economics texts in Vilfredo Pareto’s vast personal library.

The Clément Juglar collection in the Walras-Pareto Centre at the University of Lausanne consists of around seven linear metres of documents written or collected by Clément Juglar between 1848 and 1905. The documents were found at 167 Rue St. Jacques in Paris (Clément Juglar’s former home) and deposited with the Walras-Pareto Centre by Mr Demathan-Juglar, Clément Juglar’s great-grandson, in December 1999 so that they could be put to use, classified and archived under appropriate conditions. The collection was inventoried and partially classified between January and July 2000. On 2 December 2005, the Walras-Pareto Centre and GREDEG (University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis) organised a joint conference on Clément Juglar at the Institute of France in Paris to mark the centenary of Juglar’s death. This resulted in the publication of a special edition of the Revue européenne des sciences sociales (edited by Pascal Bridel and Muriel Dal-Pont Legrand). The Walras-Pareto Centre also participates in a research programme on the issue of periodic economic crises, which includes a section on Clément Juglar.

The Walras-Pareto Centre welcomes researchers with an interest in the archives, by appointment. We can provide those with an interest in the subject with a bibliography of the works of Clément Juglar, the first version of which was published in the Revue européenne des sciences sociales (Volume XLVI, 2008, No.143, pp. 107–124).

Stanislao Scalfati (1886-1970), one of Vilfredo Pareto’s final students when he studied at the University of Lausanne between 1911 and 1914, was the author of works including Essais de Sociologie économique in memory of Pareto and Maffeo Pantaleoni, the Studi Paretiani and L’école de Lausanne et l’étude des phénomènes financiers. As well as the Walras, Pareto and Juglar archives, the Walras-Pareto Centre owns a significant collection of documents that belonged to Scalfati. To date, the collection has remained largely unused.