The development of discounted cash flow and profitability of investment in France in the 1960s

The methods and concepts of the history of technology can make a contribution to the history of management techniques. The model developed by Hughes (1983) to trace the history of a technique from the invention phase to the stabilization phase can provide a useful tool of analysis. The history (until now written exclusively in Anglo-Saxon terms) of the slow adoption by firms of the very old technique of discounting, in order to evaluate investments, can be discussed within a new framework. In France the innovation phase took place very early, as a result of a long tradition of economic calculation. The French case demonstrates the link between management innovation and the social and economic environment. This link appears to be more in accord with Gille's 'loose determinism' than with any rigid causality.