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70 guest Prizes and distinctions � Economics Prix Laplace 1933 and Prix Rivot from the Académie des sciences for his passing out rank (n°1) at the École polytechnique. Prix Charles Dupin from the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (1954). Lanchester Prize from the Johns Hopkins University and the Operations Research Society of America (1958). Prix Joseph Dutens from the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (1959). Prix Robert Blanché from the Académie des sciences morales et Politiques (1983). Grand prix Guido Zerilli Marimo from the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (1984). Special jury prize, on the occasion of the creation of the Prix Dupuitde-Lesseps (1987). Nobel Prize for Economics (1988). Physics Prix Galabert from the Société française d’astronautique (1959). Laureate of the Gravity Research Foundation, 1959, USA. Passenger: how to estimate the cost of a journey for a passenger boarding a train at Calais station to travel to Paris? This ‘paradox’ is only one in the sense which is given to it by decision theory. It evokes the diffi culty of determining the price of a passenger’s train ticket from an estimation of its marginal cost. The problem is as follows. As soon as there is at least one passenger on board a train, the train has to leave. A passenger in Calais goes to the station. He wishes to travel to Paris. He boards the train leaving for the capital, but he has not yet bought his ticket. He notices that there are people in the compartment and he waits. Just before the departure of the train, he observes that several seats remain unoccupied. He sits down in one of these. When the ticket inspector passes and asks him to show his ticket, he argues that the train was anyway obliged to leave once a passenger had boarded it, and that it costs the transport company no more to run the train when it is full than when there are only one or two people aboard. Consequently, as his presence on board does not change the situation, there is no justifi cation in asking him to pay for a ticket. In conclusion, of all the passengers present on board the train, the only one who should pay for his ticket is the fi rst to have boarded the trainset… The paradox is resolved by employing the concept of marginal development cost. If the train is not full, the cost generated by the presence of this additional passenger can correspond to the price of the additional energy consumed to transport him, the cleaning and ticket inspection costs that he personally generates, as well as the additional wear caused to equipment. These costs will a priori be low. If however the train is full, this passenger necessitates the mobilisation of an additional car… If the maximum number of cars that can be towed by the locomotive or that can be received by platforms has already been reached, this additional passenger requires putting into service a second train… If the Calais-Paris line is saturated by the existing trains, the operator is then obliged to build a second line… The same event cannot therefore be assessed in the same way if the circumstances in which it occurs and the type of decision that it generates, vary. According to the availability or not of various resources (cars, trains or lines…), the appraisal of the costs generated by this additional passenger will differ according to whether they are assessed by the ticket inspector, the guard, the line manager or the network director. The answer proposed by Maurice Allais is based on the mode of addition of these costs, in response to the points of view of the different economic actors whose analyses then become complementary. Therefore, the decision is also the responsibility of the additional passenger: if his late arrival obliges mobilisation of additional physical resources such as a car or a train, the price at marginal cost indicates to him the enormous weight which he is going to be imposing on everyone, whether this be for other passengers or for the entire community. Faced by the true fi nancial cost of his wish to board the train, he can decide knowingly to maintain his choice or to wait for a following train – which will be less expensive. Pricing at marginal cost therefore sends an ‘economic signal’ to each consumer and each actor, and helps them to adopt more rational behaviour with regard to scarce resources.
According to Maurice Allais, the context in which an economic agent takes a decision and the consequences that he expects from that decision are essential. The allegory of the Calais Passenger illustrates therefore the need to consider the cost of a decision taken by an economic agent identifi ed in a specifi c context versus the average cost of a product or service. This apologue also emphasises the existence of discontinuities: costs do not always meet in a linear manner, but as they increase they reach levels at which suddenly new related costs have to be integrated. In the example of the Calais Passenger, this is for instance the cost arising from the mobilisation of a new car. Bibliography The Guidelines of my work, Nobel Conference pronounced before the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1988. À la Recherche d’une discipline économique (1943). Économie pure et rendement social (1945). Abondance ou misère (1946). Économie et intérêt (1947). La Gestion des houillères nationalisées et la théorie économique (1949). Le Comportement de l’homme rationnel devant le risque: critique des postulats et axiomes de l’école américaine, dans Econometrica, vol. 21 (1953) p. 503-546. Les Fondements comptables de la macro-économique (1954). L’Europe unie, route de la prospérité (1959). Le tiers-monde au carrefour (1961). L’Algérie d’Évian (1962). The Role of Capital in Economic Development (Rôle du capital dans le développement économique) (1963). Reformulation de la théorie quantitative de la monnaie (1965). Growth Without Infl ation (Croissance sans infl ation) (1967). La Libéralisation des relations économiques internationales - Accords commerciaux ou intégration économique (1970). L’Infl ation française et la croissance - Mythologies et réalité (1974). L’Impôt sur le capital et la réforme monétaire (1976). La Théorie générale des surplus (1978). Les Conditions monétaires d’une économie de marchés (1987). Autoportrait (1989). Pour l’indexation (1990). Les Bouleversements à l’Est. Que faire? (1990). La Théorie générale des surplus et l’économie de marchés” (1990 - trois mémoires de 1967, 1971, 1988). Contributions à la théorie générale de l’effi cacité maximale et des surplus (1990 - quatre mémoires de 1964, 1965, 1973 et 1975). Pour la réforme de la fi scalité (1990). L’Europe face à son avenir. Que faire? (1991). Erreurs et impasses de la construction européenne (1992). Combats pour l’Europe. 1992-1994 (1994). La Crise mondiale aujourd’hui (Clément Juglar, 1999). Nouveaux combats pour l’Europe. 1995-2002 (2002). L’Europe en crise. Que faire? (2005). La Mondialisation, la destruction des emplois et de la croissance, l’évidence empirique (Éd. Clément Juglar, 2007). 71
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