The State, the central bank and the monetary circuit

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I met Alain Parguez during the 1976–1977 academic year, at the University of Paris 1, in the awful-looking Tolbiac tower building, where most of the lectures to Master’s students in economics were being offered (this in France was called the Diplôme d’Études Approfondies, DEA). Bernard Ducros, who had been a doctoral thesis advisor of Alain Parguez and the author of the foreword of his first book (Parguez 1975), and who also turned up to be my PhD thesis advisor, was teaching one of the four courses offered in the advanced macroeconomics field, and for some reason could not attend several of his lectures. His replacement would then be Alain Parguez, who at that time was a maître-assistant at the University of Paris 1, before he became professeur agrégé during the 1977competition. Alain would sometimes be stuttering during his presentations, but what many students found most remarkable was the powerful loudness of his delivery. Almost each week, teachers lecturing in an adjacent room would knock on our door and shyly ask Alain if he could speak less loudly, as their own voice would be buried by Alain’s delivery, through the wall, of his comments on modern macroeconomic theory.