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

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  • 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.

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  • 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
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    1. Michel Beaud & Gilles Dostaler, 1995. "Economic Thought Since Keynes," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 146.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
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    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).

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