IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eujhet/v19y2012i1p67-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The ‘Americanisation’ of West German economics after the Second World War: Success, failure, or something completely different?

Author

Listed:
  • Jan-Otmar Hesse

Abstract

The paper examines the intellectual and structural change that German economics experienced after the Second World War. This development often was described as ‘Americanisation’, since it seemed to rest upon the influences of the American occupation regime. In contrast, the paper applies another meaning of ‘Americanisation’. It is considered a ‘discourse’ that serves to structure the disciplinary procedures to produce progress. As it can be shown by the adoption of Keynesianism and neoclassical microeconomics, the change of the discipline was not primarily driven by direct American influences. Rather, in some respect the German reception took a path of its own. That contradiction can be solved by a theoretical modification of the classical concept of ‘Americanisation’. ‘Americanisation’ there meant a change of the operational procedure of German economics to generate progress.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan-Otmar Hesse, 2012. "The ‘Americanisation’ of West German economics after the Second World War: Success, failure, or something completely different?," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 67-98, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:19:y:2012:i:1:p:67-98
    DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2010.487283
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09672567.2010.487283
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09672567.2010.487283?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michel Beaud & Gilles Dostaler, 1995. "Economic Thought Since Keynes," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 146.
    2. Gross, Laurence, 2003. "Mary B. Rose. Firms, Networks and Business Values: The British and American Cotton Industries since 1750. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xii + 352 pp. ISBN 0-521-78255-4, $70.00," Enterprise & Society, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 395-397, June.
    3. Philip Mirowski & D. Wade Hands, 2006. "Introduction to Agreement on Demand: Consumer Theory in the Twentieth Century," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 38(5), pages 1-6, Supplemen.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Goutsmedt, Aurélien & Truc, Alexandre, 2023. "An independent European macroeconomics? A history of European macroeconomics through the lens of the European Economic Review," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Suzuki, Tomo, 2003. "The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 65-95, January.
    2. Vincent Barnett, 2006. "Chancing an interpretation: Slutsky's random cycles revisited," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 411-432.
    3. Elke Muchlinski, 1998. "The Philosophy of John Maynard Keynes (A Reconsideration)," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 30(1), pages 227-253.
    4. Yoann Verger, 2018. "Sraffa and Manara: the mystery of the last article of Piero Sraffa," Working Papers hal-01700137, HAL.
    5. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2011. "Geometrical exposition of structural axiomatic economics (II): qualitative and temporal aggregation," MPRA Paper 43725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Usamah Ramadan & Warren J. Samuels, 1996. "The Treatment of Post Keynesian Economics in the History of Economic Thought Texts," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 547-565, July.
    7. Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman & Regenia Gagnier, 2002. "Irma Adelman: A Pioneer in the Expansion of Economics," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 101-116.
    8. D. Wade Hands, 2010. "Stabilizing consumer choice: the role of 'true dynamic stability' and related concepts in the history of consumer choice theory," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 313-343.
    9. Olav Bjerkholt & Ariane Dupont, 2007. "Ragnar Frisch's Axiomatic Approach in Econometrics," Post-Print hal-01081715, HAL.
    10. Gilles Dostaler, 1998. "Friedman and Keynes: divergences and convergences," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 317-347.
    11. D. Wade Hands, 2012. "The Rise and Fall of Walrasian Microeconomics: The Keynesian Effect," Chapters, in: Microfoundations Reconsidered, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Catalin Angelo Ioan & Gina Ioan, 2013. "An Equilibrium Model for an Open Economy. Romania’s Case," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 9(1), pages 102-125, February.
    13. Andreas Chai & Nicholas Rohde & Jacques Silber, 2015. "Measuring The Diversity Of Household Spending Patterns," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 423-440, July.
    14. Suzuki, Tomo, 2003. "The epistemology of macroeconomic reality: The Keynesian Revolution from an accounting point of view," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 471-517, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:19:y:2012:i:1:p:67-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.