Banks’ preference for liquidity, credit constraints, and the cyclical multiplier: Edwin Le Héron’s contributions to the post-Keynesian analysis of bank credit[Préférence pour la liquidité des banques, restriction du crédit et multiplicateur cyclique : les contributions d’Edwin Le Héron à l’analyse post-keynésienne du crédit bancaire]

This article begins by examining Edwin Le Héron's original contribution to the post-Keynesian approach to endogenous money, which involves incorporating the strategic behavior of banks into the analysis of the money supply in a context of radical uncertainty. Le Héron expands upon the work of Basil Moore and Nicolas Kaldor on horizontalism by introducing the concept of a preference for bank liquidity. This concept, which originates in Keynes's work on financial institutions, accounts for the fact that banks may, in certain situations, voluntarily ration the supply of credit regardless of market conditions, in order to preserve their perceived solvency and access to liquidity. We then show that Le Héron's analysis of banking behavior also offers an original contribution to the theoretical debates surrounding the cyclical multiplier.