The German Economic Association, or Verein für Socialpolitik (VfS), is often considered the oldest professional organization of economists in the world (see Augello and Guidi 2001). Founded in 1873, with preliminary meetings taking place in 1872, it is older than the American Economic Association (AEA), which was inaugurated in 1885. Indeed, the idea of founding such an organization in the United States was strongly influenced by the German example (Coats 1960; Peukert 2017). It should be noted that the VfS represents economists from German-speaking countries, thus including Switzerland and Austria.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the VfS, the present volume reflects on its eventful history and important changes in the direction of the organization. The papers collected in this volume were given at the 2022 meeting of the VfS's standing committee for the history of economics, held in Jena. As the editor, Peter Spahn, writes in the introduction, “The volume does not represent an attempt at a comprehensive appreciation of the 150-year history of the VfS, but the contributions provide some important building blocks for such an overall picture” (7–8; own translation). He points to a special issue of one of the VfS's periodicals providing additional articles on the subject (see Haucap 2023).
The volume comprises seven chapters. The first chapter focuses on Gustav von Schmoller, the leader of the younger German historical school, who cofounded the VfS and served as its chairman between 1890 and 1917. He was among those who thought that the VfS's main goal should be to affect policy change and especially to promote redistributive policies (hence the VfS's name, which translates to Social Policy Association). Alexander Ebner describes Schmoller's position on social policy as a mediating one that steers clear of two extremes present in the founding generation of the VfS, namely, liberal socialism as represented by Lujo Brentano and state socialism as represented by Adolph Wagner.
The second chapter, authored by Elisabeth Allgoewer, is concerned with the role of women in the VfS before 1914. In contrast to the AEA, which counts six women among its founders, women were not particularly visible in the VfS's early history. The chapter provides some tentative explanations for this, including the legal situation in Germany at the time (which prohibited women from joining certain kinds of associations). More importantly, however, the chapter highlights the earliest contributions by women to VfS publications and conferences.
The VfS dissolved in 1936 instead of submitting to the forced coordination (Gleichschaltung) demanded by the National Socialists. The third chapter by Hauke Janssen offers the first comprehensive account of the VfS's dissolution. It paints a complex picture of this process, reporting both opposition to the regime as well as acts of appeasement. As an example of the latter, the VfS's board decided to exclude Jews from leadership roles under the chairmanship of Werner Sombart.
The fourth chapter by Tetsushi Harada addresses Schmoller's usage of the term Volkswirtschaft (usually translated as economy) to denote a country's “national” economy, which can be understood (Schmoller believed) only with reference to the specific history, customs, and so on of that country. As shown by the author, Schmoller's concept was received and further developed by Sombart, Edgar Salin, and Arthur Spiethoff—but also by representatives of National Socialist economics such as Erwin Wiskemann, who (mis)interpreted the concept as congenial to the regime's racist worldview.
The VfS's identity and economic policy perspective in the postwar period is the subject of the fifth chapter by Bertram Schefold, who gives an overview of the conferences between 1950 and 2000. One observation is that the VfS became, over time, less interested in offering concrete economic policy advice and more interested in acting as a professional organization for scientists of different political persuasions. Relatedly, the chapter notes the declining influence of German neoliberalism (i.e., ordoliberalism) on the conference discussions.
In recent decades, an important trend in economics has been the relative strengthening of empirical research as opposed to theory. The sixth chapter, written by Volker Caspari, describes this “empirical turn” in economics. It also discusses the notion of “evidence-based” economic policy, which the VfS is now officially committed to. Interestingly, the author points out that the translation evidenzbasiert is misleading, as Evidenz in German linguistics and philosophy refers to self-evidence (in the sense of an obvious insight) rather than evidence.
The seventh and last chapter comments on the evolution of the field of economic history and its standing within the VfS. As observed by Jan-Otmar Hesse, economic history is currently a subfield of both economics and history, with different priorities and methods depending on the respective parent discipline. He cautions that the recent success of economic history research in economics—the exploration of historical datasets—should not be seen as vindicating the approach of the German historical school with its emphasis on historical context dependency.
The present book should be of interest to all historians of economics working on German economic thought of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The history of the VfS is deeply intertwined with the development of the discipline as such, mirroring, for instance, the decline of the historical school, the brief appearance of National Socialist economics, and the eventual embrace of mainstream international economics. While the volume does not provide a comprehensive overview of the VfS's history, it excels at highlighting important aspects of the organization's development over the last 150 years. It is especially commendable that the authors did not hesitate to address some of the more controversial aspects of this development, such as the initial lack of women's representation and the VfS's messy dissolution under National Socialism.
