著者

髙 哲男

出版者

経済学史学会

雑誌

経済学史研究 (ISSN:18803164)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, no.1, pp.75-85, 2013 (Released:2019-08-23)

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The rapid economic growth from the late 19th century in America was achieved with policies representing ʻAmerican Exceptionalism.ʼ It jus-tified the protection of infant industries to make America independent from the old and feudalistic European Powers. The main econom-ic policies consisted of the internal laissez-fair and the external protectionism. American eco-nomic thought was obliged to change from the traditional field of moral philosophy to explain-ing practical economic policies when modern scientific technologies created the emergency of labor management conflict in factories employ-ing high industrial productivity and a mass of unskilled labors. The outbreak of the so-called social problem promoted the establishment of economic depart-ment in universities, educating new business men for managing new large industries and oth-er public services. The universities required the training of faculty members to teach graduate courses. In the graduate courses of economics, main textbooks sifted from J. S. Millʼs Principles to A. Marshallʼs Economics and the writings of German Historical School. Since graduate stu-dents wanted to learn practical economics, seek-ing appropriate policies for solving social prob-lems, studentʼs research works into fundamental theories and thoughts of economics slighted. This situation began to change in the 1920ʼs, when economists and graduate students began to seek new methods to achieve a theoretically uni-fied system of economics appropriate for the American economy. The making of American economics, therefore, indispensably accompa-nied with the study of the economic thoughts in order to ascertain its origins and significances in the historical studies, and not a few outstanding works were written at that time. JEL classification numbers: B 1, B 13, B 15.