Quel modèle pour écrire le réel ? L’expérimentation et l’exemplarité comme modèles économiques chez Émile Zola et Guy de Maupassant

In this article, we tackle the link between economic models and realist writing. Through a reading of La Curée by Zola and Bel-Ami by Maupassant, we deploy two variations of a modelling of the real : experimentation and exemplarity. Distinguishing itself from the creation of univocal models of economic science, literature relates a prognostic model, aiming at speculative scenarios, with an imitative model, entering into dialogue with contemporary economic knowledge.