Abstract
A short introduction explains a fundamental assumption. The political and intellectual realms of a person’s life often are separate – and both change over time. This is followed by a biographical sketch of Stackelberg. Next comes an examination of the historical and theoretical context in which his work occurred. The time was that of the Great Depression and the revolution in thinking about monopolistic situations that occurred as a result. After this, his main contributions are summarized. One of the most important of these was in the analysis of “unstable” market forms (imperfect or monopolistic competition) which did not fit the equilibrium conditions of earlier writers. The next section is devoted to the application of his ideas and techniques to business and the economics of today. A few of the thousands of applications are described. The last section is devoted to an assessment of his contributions from the point of view of modern theory. There is no doubt that he will have a permanent place as one who laid the foundations for modern thinking about game theory and monopolistic situations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Niehans has 1933 (p. 190). I have examined the Party documents.
- 2.
Konow (p. 148) has him attaining the rank of staff sergeant. He enlisted as a private in the reserves. Conversations with, and letters from Stackelberg’s son, Hans-Heinrich Freiherr von Stackelberg, are the reason that some of the standard sources are questioned. All the references to Hans-Heinrich von Stackelberg are to personal communications from him as are those labelled “(Personal communication)”.
Konow and Niehans give the standard German sources for information about Stackelberg’s life. Senn has them for the English language. There are other places where a few paragraphs about him, mostly second hand, appear. For an example, see Heinz D. Kurz’s review.
- 3.
He also knew English, French, Italian, Spanish, ancient Greek and Latin (Konow, p. 147).
- 4.
Again, the standard sources about his military service are probably unreliable. Some have him serving on both the Eastern and Western fronts and wounded.
- 5.
Niehans says these meetings began about 1942 (p. 191).
- 6.
See von Hassell (pp. 323, 352, 363) for examples.
- 7.
Krelle explains in another way, “The difficulty of oligopoly theory consists in the fact that the oligopolists are in a game theoretic situation which, in general, cannot be put into the form of a pure maximum problem. Stackelberg’s seminal idea was that this can nevertheless be done if – in the case of a duopoly – one firm takes a “dependent” position (that is, takes the actual price or production of the other firm as given) and the other an “independent” one (that is, knows this behaviour and fixes its price or production accordingly so that it maximizes its profits or other utility indices)”. “Since it is unclear which position the firms will take, Stackelberg considered the oligopoly as a market form without equilibrium” (p. 469).
- 8.
It is necessary to distinguish between the applications Stackelberg made and those others have made. Stackelberg’s applications are discussed above in connection with his contributions and below in connection with his policies.
- 9.
He often played the mathematics down as in Marktform und Gleichgewicht where most of the mathematics is in a Mathematischer Anhang [Mathematical Appendix], pp. 106–138.
References
Backhaus JG (1996) Stackelberg’s concept of the post-war economic order. J Econ Stud 23(5/6):141–148
Baumgärtner S (1998) Heinrich Von Stackelberg’s theory of joint production. Discussion Paper no. 265, Department of Economics, Interdisciplinary Institute of Environmental Economics, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Blaug M, Sturges P (eds) (1983) Who’s who in economics: a biographical dictionary of major economists 1700–1981. Wheatsheaf Books Ltd., Brighton
Chamberlin EH (1933) The theory of monopolistic competition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Revised edition 1948)
Eatwell J, Murray M, Peter N (eds) (1987) The New Palgrave: a dictionary of economics, 4 vols. The Stockton Press, New York; a division of Grove’s Dictionaries
Eucken W (1948) Obituary: Heinrich von Stackelberg. Econ J 58(229):132–134
Fuertes JV (1996) Stackelberg and his role in the change in spanish economic policy. J Econ Stud 23(5/6):128–140
Haney LH (1949) History of economic thought: a critical account of the origin and development of the economic theories of the leading thinkers in the leading nations, 4th enlarged edition. The Macmillan Company, New York (First edition 1911)
Harrod RF (1933) Review of Edward Hastings Chamberlin. The theory of monopolistic competition. Econ J XLII(172):661–666
Konow J (1994) The political economy of Heinrich von Stackelberg. Econ Inq 32(1):146–165
Krelle W (1987) Stackelberg, Heinrich von (1905–1946), vol 4. In: Eatwell J, Murray M, Peter N (eds) The New Palgrave: a dictionary of economics, 4 vols. The Stockton Press, New York, p 469; a division of Grove’s Dictionaries
Kurz HD (1993) Review of Stackelberg’s ‘Gesammelte Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen’. Eur J Hist Econ Thought 1(1):211–216
Leontief W (1936) Stackelberg on monopolistic competition. J Polit Econ 44(4):554–559
Niehans J (1992) Heinrich von Stackelberg: relinking German economics to the mainstream. J Hist Econ Thought 14(2):189–208
Oberender P, Claudius C (1966) Heinrich von Stackelberg: Nur ein Pionier der Preistheorie? in Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, vol 215. pp 363–376 (I have not seen this article)
Pribram K (1983) A history of economic reasoning. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
Robinson J (1933) The economics of imperfect competition. Macmillan and Co., Limited, London (The book was reprinted many times. I worked from the 1948 reprint)
Schmölders G (1948) Jens Jessen (1896–1944). Econ J 58(229):135–136
Schumpeter JA (1954) History of economic analysis, edited from manuscript by Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter. Oxford University Press, New York
Senn PR (1996a) A short sketch of Stackelberg’s career. J Econ Stud 23(5/6):8–11
Senn PR (1996b) Heinrich von Stackelberg in the history of economic ideas. J Econ Stud 23(5/6):12–35
Stackelberg HV (1932a) Grundlagen einer reinen Kostentheorie. Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie 3(333–367):552–590
Stackelberg HV (1932b) Grundlagen einer reinen Kostentheorie. Julius Springer, Vienna. Konow says this book was an expansion of the article above. (163) Backhaus suggests that it was probably the other way around (Jürgen Backhaus, letter to the author, September 1995)
Stackelberg HV (1952) The theory of the market economy, translated from the German and with an introduction by Alan T. Peacock. Oxford University Press, New York. This is a translation of Grundlagen der theoretischen Volkswirtschaftslehre (Foundations of Economic Theory). It has an interesting history. The first edition was entitled Grundzüge der theoretischen Nationalökonomie (Outlines of Economic Theory). It was almost entirely destroyed in an air raid on Stuttgart in 1943. Stackelberg revised and enlarged it during his time in Spain. It was published first in Spanish, as Principios de Teoría Económica, and then in German in 1948
Stigler GJ (1976) The scientific uses of scientific biography: with special reference to John Stuart Mill. In: The economist as preacher and other essays. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982
von Hassell U (1988) Die Hassell-Tagebücher 1938–1944: Aufzeichnungen vom Andern Deutschland, nach der Handschrift revidierte und erweiterte Ausgabe unter Mitarbeit von Klaus Peter Reiss herausgegeben von Friedrich Freiherr Hiller von Gaertringen. Siedler Verlag, Berlin
von Stackelberg H (1934) Marktform und Gleichgewicht. Julius Springer, Vienna
Acknowledgments
Jürgen Backhaus, Ursula Backhaus, Wolfgang Drechsler, Merle Kingman, Gerrit Meijer, and Hans-Heinrich Freiherr von Stackelberg helped me with useful critiques for which I thank them. I am particularly obligated to Mary Stone Senn who, in addition to making many specialized computer searches, was helpful in countless other ways. Thanks also to Anita Lauterstein who did much of the typing. Any errors are my own.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Senn, P.R. (2012). The Scientific Contributions of Heinrich von Stackelberg. In: Backhaus, J. (eds) Handbook of the History of Economic Thought. The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences, vol 11. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8336-7_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8336-7_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-8335-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-8336-7
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)