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eBook: Ordoliberalism: A German oddity?

December 12, 2017

eBook: Ordoliberalism: A German oddity?

December 12, 2017
Hans-Helmut Kotz in VOX | CEPR's Policy Portal

Note: Several chapters in this e-book were published as a result of a workshop that was organize at CES in April 2017. For details and a list of participants, see the agenda of "Workshop: Incompatible Economic Philosophies: German Ordo vs. U.S. Pragmatism."


German economics and, as a result, German economic policymaking, appear to be a land apart. Critics have even suggested that German policymakers and academics live in a “parallel intellectual universe”. The conflict, for example, with US economic policy pragmatism is a hardy perennial in international debates – dating back long before the most recent struggles in the G20 context. Similarly, the Eurozone crisis has opened fault lines between German economists and policymakers and those in a number of Eurozone (in particular periphery) countries. This column introduces a new eBook explaining the historical development of the ordoliberal school of economics and its influence on German policymaking, and contrasting it critically with what we like to call the Anglo-Saxon-Latin pragmatism of economic policymaking. The contributors come from a wide spectrum of economic schools of thoughts and include both academics and (former) policymakers that have had to directly deal with the consequences of these fault lines.

About the Author

Hans-Helmut Kotz

Hans-Helmut Kotz

Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair

Hans-Helmut Kotz is a visiting professor of economics at Harvard University, where he has been teaching a course on the Economics of European Integration during the fall semester since 2010. At Goethe ...
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