Emil Lederer : Business Cycles, Crises, and Growth

Austrian economics, classical political economy and influences from the German historical school form Lederer's background. His contributions to business cycle theory reflect this diverse heritage. This paper traces the development of Lederer's business cycle explanation from his 1925 contribution to Grundriss der Sozialokonomie on "Konjunktur und Krisen" and his 1927 article on the effects of cartels and trusts on fluctuations to his Technical progress and unemployment (1931/1938). Whereas the disproportional development of different types of income in the course of the cycle are central to Lederer's argument in 1925 his focus shifts to issues of the development of investment, production capacity, and employment opportunities in his later work. Not least his contributions to the explanation of cycles and crises made Lederer an acclaimed economist and influential member of the academic community in the Weimar years. The final section of this paper addresses reasons why Lederer's work though commemorated in an entry in the New Palgrave is known to few economists today