Sumner Slichter and Emil Lederer: Central Visions Compared*

Katselidis, Ioannis and Vouldis, Angelos and Michaelides, Panayotis G. (2010): Sumner Slichter and Emil Lederer: Central Visions Compared*.

Abstract

umner Slichter was “perhaps the most influential industrial economist in America”, while Emil Lederer was “the leading academic socialist of Germany in the 1920’s”. However, most aspects of their works remain unexplored. This paper analyzes Lederer’s and Slichter’s central theses. Given the presence of main elements of both economists’ visions in the famous Debate on Technological Unemployment which took place in the U.S.A. (1928-1933), it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to their works. After a careful examination of their writings, their theoretical investigations in a great number of thematic areas seem to converge. Analytically, both economists, attempted to explain the apparent inability of the economic system to readjust and absorb the unemployed workers. Also, both economists disputed the assertion of Say’s law that full equilibrium would be assured by the functioning of market forces. They both emphasised on the role of technical change. Another interesting aspect of both economists’ investigations is their respective theoretical shift around 1930 which could be related to the disastrous consequences of the Great Depression. The paper concludes that, despite some obvious differences between Lederer and Slichter, the parallels are undeniable.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Slichter, Lederer, Technological Unemployment, Equilibrium
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B3 - History of Economic Thought: Individuals > B31 - Individuals; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J0 - General

References

Allgoewer, E. (2003), “Emil Lederer: Business Cycles, Crises, and Growth.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 25.3: 327-348

Backhouse, R. E. (1997), “Review of the Technological Unemployment and Structural Unemployment Debates by Gregory R. Woirol”, Journal of Economic Literature, 35 (December): 2075-2076.

Berkeley, U. C. (1951), “The consequences of the Abrogation of Tenure: An Accounting of Costs.” Feb. 1, University of California (System). Committee on Academic Freedom, Bancroft Library: James Ralston Caldwell Papers.

Christenson, C. L. (1961), “Review of Potentials of the American Economy: Selected Essays of Sumner H. Slichter by Sumner Slichter; John T. Dunlop.” American Economic Review, 51.4 (September): 671-674.

Dickler, R. A. (1981), “Emil Lederer und die moderne Theorie des wirtschaftlichen Wachstums.”, Nachwort zu Emil Lederer: Technischer Fortschritt und Arbeitslosigkeit. Eine Untersuchung der Hindernisse des ökonomischen Wachstums, Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt: 263-327.

Dickler, R. A. (1983), “Lederer’s Theorie der strukturellen Arbeitslosigkeit und lange Wellen.” in Hagemann, H. and P. Kalmbach (eds), Technischer Fortschritt und Arbeitslosigkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag: 186-203.

Dickler, R. A. (1987), “Lederer, Emil” in Eatwell, J., Milgate, M. and P. Newman (eds), The New Palgrave. A dictionary of economics, Vol. 3: 157-158.

Diebolt, C. (2006), “Progrès technique et cycles économiques dans la pensée allemande de l’entre-deux-guerres: l’apport d’Emil Lederer.” Association Française de Cliométrie Working Paper 9.

Dorfman, J. (1969) [1959], The Economic Mind in American Civilization. Volumes Four and Five, New York: Augustus M. Kelley.

Dunlop, J. T. (1961), Potentials of the American Economy: Selected Essays of Sumner Slichter, Harvard University Press.

Dunlop, J. T. (1987), Slichter, Sumner Huber, in Eatwell, J., M. Milgate and P. Newman (eds.), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics. London: Macmillan, 2: 864- 866.

Esslinger, H. U. (1997), “Einflüsse der Emigrationserfahrung auf Emil Lederers wirtschaftstheoretische und soziologische Arbeiten”, in: Hagemann, Harald (ed.) Zur deutschsprachigen wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Emigration nach 1933. Marburg: Metropolis Verlag: 353-381.

Esslinger, H. U. (1999), “Lederer, Emil Hans” in: Hagemann, Harald and Claus-Dieter Krohn (eds) Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Emigration nach 1933. München, Saur: 354-362.

Garraty, J. A. (1978), Unemployment in History: Economic Thought and Public Policy. New York: Harper & Row.

Goldberg, J. P., and W. T. Moye (1985), The First Hundred Years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 2235, Washington, D.C.: GPO.

Gourvitch, A. (1940), Survey of Economic Theory on Technological Change and Employment, New York: A. M. Kelley, 1966.

Haberler, G. (1950), “Joseph Alois Schumpeter: 1883-1950”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 64: 333-72.

Hagemann, H. and P. Kalmbach (eds) (1983), Technischer Fortschritt und Arbeitslosigkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Campus.

Hagemann, H. (1997), “Zerstörung eines innovativen Forschungszentrums und Emigrationsgewinn. Zur Rolle der “Kieler Schule” 1926-1933 und ihrer Wirkung im Exil.” in: Hagemann, Harald (ed) Zur deutschsprachigen wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Emigration nach 1933. Marburg: Metropolis Verlag: 293-341.

Hagemann, H. (2000), “Emil Lederer (1882-1939): Economical and sociological analyst and critic of capitalist development.” in: Koslowski, P. (ed) The theory of capitalism in the German economic tradition. Historism, Ordo-Liberalism, Critical Theory, Solidarism. Berlin: Springer: 26-51.

Hagemann, H. (2004), “The German Historical Approach to Economics”, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology 22-A: 399-411.

Hagemann, H. (2005), “Dismissal, Expulsion and Emigration of German-speaking economists after 1933”, Journal of the History of Economic Thought 27, 4: 405-420.

Hansen, A. (1932), “The Theory of Technological Progress and Displacement of Labor.” American Economic Review Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty- fourth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association 22.1 (March): 25-31.

Johnson, A. (2000), Memorie, in M. Salvati (ed.) Da Berlino a New York. Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 231–40.

Kaldor, N. (1932), “A Case against Technical Progress?”, Economica 36 (May): 180-196. L

ederer, E. (1925), “Konjuktur und Krisen”, in Grundriss der Sozialoekonomik. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. 354–413.

Lederer, E. (1930), “Ort und Grenze des zusätzlichen Kredits.”, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 63.3: 513-522.

Lederer, E. (1931), Technischer Fortschritt und Arbeitslosigkeit, J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen.

Lederer, E. (1933), “Les progrès techniques et le chômage”, Revue Internationale du Travail XXVIII.1: 1-26.

Lederer, E. (1936), “Developments in Economic Theory”, American Economic Review, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association 26, 1 (March): 151-160.

Lederer, E. (1938), Technical Progress and Unemployment, Geneva: King and Son.

Lederer, E. (2006), “On the Sociology of World War”, Archive of European Sociology XLVII.2: 241-268.

Lederer, E. and Lederer-Seidler, E. (1938), Japan in Transition. London: Oxford University Press.

Leeson, Robert (1997), “Influence (or the Lack of It) in the Economics Profession: The Case of Lucien Albert Hahn”, History of Political Economy 29, 4 (Winter): 635–638.

Lonigan, E. (1939), “The Effects of Modern Technological Conditions on the Employment of Labor”, American Economic Review, 29. 2 (June): 246-259.

Michaelides, P. and Milios, J. (2005), “Did Hilferding Influence Schumpeter?”, History of Economics Review 41: 98-125.

Michaelides, P. and Milios, J. (2009), “Schumpeter and the German Historical School", Cambridge Journal of Economics 33. 3: 495-516.  McCraw, T. K. (2007), Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Malthus, T. R. (1836), Principles of Political Economy Considered with a View to Their Practical Application, London: W. Pichering.

Michaelides, P., Milios., J., Vouldis, A. and Lapatsioras, S. (2010), “Heterodox Influences on Schumpeter”, International Journal οf Social Economics 37. 3: 197-213.

Milios, J., Dimoulis D. and Economakis, G. (2002), Karl Marx and the Classics. An Essay on Value, Crises and the Capitalist Mode of Production. Ashgate, Aldershot.

Mongiovi, G. (2005), “Émigré economists and American neoclassical economics 1933- 1945”, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 27. 4: 427-437.

Moszkowska, N. (1935), Zur Kritik moderner Krisentheorien. M. Kacha: Prag. Reinert, E. (2002), “Schumpeter in the Context of two Canons of Economic Thought”, Industry and Innovation 6. 1: 23-39.

Rutherford, M. (2006), “Wisconsin Institutionalism: John R. Commons and His Students”, Labor History 47. 2 (May): 161-188.

Schumpeter, J. (1954), History of Economic Analysis. Oxford University Press, New York.

Senn, P. (2003), “The Influence of Schumpeter’s German Writings on the Mainstream Economic Literature in English.” in Backhaus, J. Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, 141-162.

Shionoya, Y. (2005), The Soul of the German Historical School, New York: Springer.

Sismondi, L. S. (1827), Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, Delaunay: Paris.

Slichter, S. H. (1929), “Market Shifts, Price Movements, and Employment.” American Economic Review, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-first Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association 19.1 (March): 5-22.

Slichter, S. H. (1932), “Lines of Action, Adaptation, and Control.” American Economic Review, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association 22.1 (March): 41-54.

Toye, J. (2006), “Hans Singer’s debts to Schumpeter and Keynes.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 30. 6: 819-833.

Woirol, G. R. (2006), “New Data, New Issues: The Origins of the Technological Unemployment Debates.” History of Political Economy 38.3: 473-496.