Dr Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay

Staff details

Position Senior Lecturer in Economics
Email m.desmarais-tremblay (@gold.ac.uk)
Phone +44 (0)20 8228 5592
Dr Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay

I joined the Institute of Management Studies as Lecturer in Economics in 2017. I research the history and philosophy of economics. Prior to joining Goldsmiths, I was a postdoctoral assistant at the Centre Walras-Pareto in Lausanne. In 2021 I was a visiting fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University. I am the book review editor of the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD in History of economic thought, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Université de Lausanne 2016
  • Master in Economic Methodology, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne 2011
  • MSc in Economics, Université de Montréal 2011
  • BSc in Mathematics, Université de Montréal 2007

Teaching and Supervision

I teach economic history and public economics. I am available to supervise PhD dissertations in history of economic thought.

Research interests

The research I conduct brings a reflexive outlook to economics. I have worked mainly in two areas: The history of public finance, and the conceptual history of economic thought.
I am currently working on a book project on Richard A. Musgrave and the Normative Foundations of Modern Public Finance.

Publications and research outputs

Book Section

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2021. Musgrave and the Idea of Community. In: Roger Backhouse; Antoinette Baujard and Tamotsu Nishizawa, eds. Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values: Revisiting the History of Welfare Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 232-255. ISBN 9781108882507

Cserne, Péter and Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2021. Merit Goods. In: Mortimer Sellers and Stephan Kirste, eds. Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, pp. 1-6. ISBN 9789400767300

Article

Bee, Michele and Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2023. The Birth of Homo Œconomicus: The methodological debate on the economic agent from J. S. Mill to V. Pareto. Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 45(1), pp. 1-26. ISSN 1053-8372

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime and Stojanović, Aleksandar. 2022. Framing Institutional Choice, 1937–1973: New Institutional Economics and the Neglect of the Commons. Review of Political Economy, 34(4), pp. 665-691. ISSN 0953-8259

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime and Svorenčík, Andrej. 2021. A prosopography of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 28(6), pp. 1005-1024. ISSN 0967-2567

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2021. Généalogie du principe d’équité horizontale. Une contribution à l’histoire de la normativité en théorie des finances publiques. Revue de philosophie économique, 22(2), pp. 149-176. ISSN 1376-0971

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2021. Walras, Musgrave et l’hétérogénéité entre les biens publics et les biens privés. Œconomia, 11(2), pp. 315-346. ISSN 2113-5207

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2021. Paternalism and the Public Household: On the Domestic Origins of Public Economics. History of Political Economy, 53(2), pp. 179-211. ISSN 0018-2702

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2021. Monopoly power and competition. The Italian Marginalist perspective [Review]. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 28(1), pp. 170-172. ISSN 0967-2567

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2020. W.H. Hutt and the conceptualization of consumers’ sovereignty. Oxford Economic Papers, 72(4), pp. 1050-1071. ISSN 0030-7653

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2020. Niklas Olsen, The Sovereign Consumer: A New Intellectual History of Neoliberalism [Review]. Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 42(2), pp. 288-290. ISSN 1053-8372

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2019. June A. Sekera, The Public Economy in Crisis. A Call for a New Public Economics [Review]. Œconomia, 9(3), pp. 585-588. ISSN 2113-5207

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2019. Calabresi on Merit Goods. Global Jurist, 19(3), 20180053. ISSN 1934-2640

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime and Johnson, Marianne. 2019. “The Fiscal Policy Seminar: Its Early Stages” by Richard A. Musgrave. Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, 37C, pp. 147-179. ISSN 0743-4154

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2019. The Normative Problem of Merit Goods in Perspective. Forum for Social Economics, 48(3), pp. 219-247. ISSN 0736-0932

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2018. The world in the model. How economists work and think [Review]. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 25(3), pp. 493-498. ISSN 0967-2567

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2018. Ian Kumekawa, The First Serious Optimist. A. C. Pigou and the Birth of Welfare Economics [Review]. History of Economic Ideas, 26(1), pp. 190-194. ISSN 1122-8792

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2017. Musgrave, Samuelson, and the Crystallization of the Standard Rationale for Public Goods. History of Political Economy, 49(1), pp. 59-92. ISSN 0018-2702

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2017. A genealogy of the concept of merit wants. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 24(3), pp. 409-440. ISSN 0967-2567

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2015. Wilfred Dolfsma: Government Failure: Society, Markets and Rules [Review]. Journal of Economic Issues, 49(4), pp. 1140-1142. ISSN 0021-3624

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2014. Angela Kallhoff, Why Democracy Needs Public Goods [Review]. Œconomia, 4(2), pp. 249-253.

Desmarais-Tremblay, Maxime. 2014. Normative and positive theories of public finance: contrasting Musgrave and Buchanan. Journal of Economic Methodology, 21(3), pp. 273-289. ISSN 1350-178X

Further profile content

Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups

Grants and awards

2020: Young Researcher Award (The European Society for the History of Economic Thought)
This prize is awarded every year to one (or two) scholar(s) below the age of 40 in recognition of outstanding publications in the history of economic thought.

2017: Faculty award for excellence of dissertation, HEC Lausanne

2017: Aguirre-Basualdo Prize for PhD dissertation in economics awarded by the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris