Karl William Kapp (October 27, 1910 – April 4, 1976) was a German-American

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

and professor of economics at the City University of New York and later the University of Basel. Kapp's main contribution was the development of a theory of social costs that captures urgent socio-ecological problems and proposes preventative policies based on the precautionary principle. His theory is in the tradition of various heterodox economic paradigms, such as

ecological economics Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics, or ecol-econ is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economy, economies and natural ec ...

Marxian economics Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian ...

social economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyse ...

, and

institutional economics Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the Sociocultural evolution, evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping Economy, economic Human behavior, behavior. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instin ...

. As such, Kapp's theory of social costs was an ongoing debate with neoclassical economics and the rise of

neoliberalism Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pe ...

. He was an opponent of the compartmentalisation of knowledge and championed, instead, the integration and humanization of the social sciences. He is regarded as a foundational thinker in the development of social ecological economics.

Biography

Kapp was born in

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

in 1910 as son of August Wilhelm Kapp, who was a teacher of physics. In secondary school at the ''Hufengymnasium'' one of his teachers was the poet Ernst WiechertBiographical Information K. William Kapp
retrieved 15 April 2008. End 1920s he started studying

law and economics Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law. The field emerged in the United States during the early 1960s, primarily from the work of scholars from the Chicago school of econ ...

at the universities in Berlin and

. He continued his studies in London and at the

Graduate Institute of International Studies Graduate may refer to: Education * The subject of a graduation, i.e. someone awarded an academic degree ** Alumni, a former student who has either attended or graduated from an institution * High school graduate, someone who has completed hi ...

in Geneva, where in 1936 he received a Ph.D. in economics with his dissertation "Planwirtschaft und Aussenhandel". In Geneva Kapp had met the people of the

Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...

, who emigrated to the US and settled as ''Institute for Social Research'' at the Columbia University, New York City. In 1937 they granted Kapp a scholarship. From 1938 to 1945 he was an instructor in economics at the

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in New York. From 1945 to 1950 he was assistant professor of economics at the

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

in Middleton, Connecticut. From 1950 to 1965 he was a professor of economics at the University of the City of New York. He was among the first members of the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE). In 1965 he returned to Switzerland and was professor of economics at the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

until 1976. In that time he was also a visiting professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris. In 1976, Kapp had a fatal heart attack during a conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Work

Kapp's research interests ranged from economics, sociology, policy making and environmental science to the theory of knowledge, the history of economic thought, and many related topics.Karl William Kapp 1910–1976, Obituary
in ''Journal of Economic Issues'' (1976), nr 09.

Planning debate

In his 1936 dissertation ''Planwirtschaft und Aussenhandel'' contributed to the debate around the

economic calculation problem The economic calculation problem (ECP) is a criticism of using central economic planning as a substitute for Market (economics), market-based allocation of the factors of production. It was first proposed by Ludwig von Mises in his 1920 article ...

, a criticism of central economic planning. This problem was first proposed by

Ludwig von Mises Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (; ; September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was an Austrian-American political economist and philosopher of the Austrian school. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the social contributions of classical l ...

in 1920, expounded by Friedrich Hayek and further debated in the 1920s and 1930s. Kapp argued that a

planned economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...

is "not doomed to autarky because there are ways to deal with the valuation problem so that trade and exchange with market economies can be organized".

Publications

* 1936, ''Planwirtschaft und Außenhandel'', Genève : Georg & Cie. * 1950, ''The Social Costs of Private Enterprise'', Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard Univ. Press * 1963, ''The Social Costs of Business Enterprise'' * 1961, ''Towards a Science of Man in Society – A Positive Approach towards the Integration of Social Knowledge'' * 1958, ''Volkswirtschaftliche Kosten der Privatwirtschaft''. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck). * 1975, ''Neue Wege für Bangladesh''. Hamburg : Inst. f. Asienkunde * 1976, ''Staatliche Förderung "umweltfreundlicher" Technologien''. Göttingen: Schwartz. * 2011, ''The Foundations of Institutional Economics – by K. William Kapp, edited by Sebastian Berger and Rolf Steppacher''. Routledge.

References

External links

K. William Kapp Research Center

The Kapp’s Personal Archive - A Historiographic Research Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kapp, Karl William 1910 births 1976 deaths Writers from Königsberg University of Königsberg alumni Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni 20th-century German economists American sustainability advocates Wesleyan University faculty Ecological economists 20th-century American economists Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States