While the two-Cambridge controversy brings new interest on conceptual issues related to the theory of capital, this thesis aims at providing a common framework to theories of production, capital and monetary circulation. An introductory chapter sets the main issues this work copes with: formal vs. conceptual approaches, exchange vs. production theories, circulation vs. allocation. Wicksell's theory of a capitalistic and monetary economy is retained as the reference framework for the study. Within five chapters, the first part provides elements for a theory of finance capital. Chapter one describes the evolution of capital theory from the circulation, or circuit, approach- considered by classical and Marxist economists, to the neoclassical view in terms of allocation of goods and services. Chapter two presents the varieties of the concept of capital associated with the time dimensions of the productive process. Chapter three sets the microeconomic foundations of the proposed structural representation as the combination of a technological production function with a proper formulation of financial constraints. Chapter four provides a time-theoretical analysis of wicksellian inspiration, using statistical distribution functions applied to the application of input through time, thus providing a rigorous view on the so-called period of production. Under the heading " Production and monetary circulation", the part two extends the analysis to a global model, used to characterize the historical dynamics of capitalism. Chapter five copes with a production model, similar to the dynamic Leontief one, with due care to the time-dimension of inputs. Besides Sraffa's Standard system, a rationale is provided for E. Nell's Uniform system as an alternative benchmark for values and earnings. Chapter six provides models of monetary circulation which, following a paper by Fei, use the valuated graphs formalism. This allows showing that a duality principle works in the circulation approach, like the well-known one in the allocation approach. Within the circulation theory, two cases have to be considered according to the nature of the impulse to the circuit, either the advances from producers, either the expenses of consumers. Following a macro-dynamic perspective, the last chapter shows that the so-called closed and open systems are respectively associated with binding constraints on capital and labor. That commands the features of technical progress. These two systems are thus associated with successive phases of the historical dynamics of capitalism, to be interpreted as the succession of extensive and intensive growth. Some relations with the evolution of economic thought are finally suggested.
