70 Jahre Wirtschafts- und Währungsreform: Von der Rekonstruktionstheorie zur Ordnungspolitik

There are at least two alternative approaches to the valuation of the price and monetary reform in 1948. The one relates to the so-called reconstruction thesis saying that the significant economic recovery in post-war West Germany was not the result of Ludwig Erhard`s monetary reform and price liberalisation policy. Instead, it was the long-run productivity of the country which determined its economic growth independent of Erhard`s reform policy. In this article, it is argued that it was the change of the institutional arrangements as regards introducing more market economy into post-war West Germany. Therefore, what we can learn from Ludwig Erhard´s post war strategy Ordoliberalism as part of the Institutional Economics market approach fosters growth and development. In Germany, Erhard´s market philosophy meanwhile has lost broad political acceptance.