Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher

Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher (October 21, 1817 - June 4, 1894), German economist, was born at Hanover.

He studied at Göttingen and Berlin, and obtained a professorship at Göttingen in 1844 and subsequently at Leipzig in 1848. Omitting preparatory indications and undeveloped germs of doctrine, the origin of the historical school of political economy may be traced to Roscher. Its fundamental principles are dated, though with some hesitation, and with an unfortunate contrast of the historical with the philosophical method, in his Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirtschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode (1843).

This short study was afterwards expanded into his great System der Volkswirthschaft, published in five volumes between 1854 and 1894, and arranged as follows:

• vol. i., Die Grundlagen der National Ökonomie, 1854 (trans. by JJ Lalor, Principles of Political Economy, Chicago, 1878)
• vol. ii., Die Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues und der verwandten Urproduktionen,, 1859
• vol. iii., Die Nationalökonomik des Handels und Gewerbfleisses, 1881
• vol. iv., System der Finanzwissenschaft, 1886
• vol. v., System der Armenpfiege und Armenpolitik, 1894.

His Geschichte der Nationalökonomie in Deutschland (1874) is a monumental work.

He also published in 1842 an excellent commentary on the life and works of Thucydides.

See T Roscher, Zur Geschichte aer Familie Roscher in Niedersachsen (Hanover, 1892); Brasch, Wilhelm Roscher und die socialwissenschaftlichen Stromungen der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1895).

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.