Joseph Alois Schumpeter, 1883–1950: Economic Development

Abstract

Schumpeter was born in 1883 in Trisch in Moravia, then a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1901 he entered the Faculty of Law in the University of Vienna, receiving his Doctorate of Law there in 1906. The study of economics was then part of the Law course at Vienna and Schumpeter attended seminars given by von Wieser, von Philippovich (which gave Schumpeter an enduring interest in the history of economics) and from 1904, Böhm-Bawerk. The last was made lively from the brilliance of Schumpeter’s fellow students, von Mises, and the Austrian Marxists, Otto Bauer and Rudolf Hilferding. The experience gave Schumpeter a life-long interest in marxism and socialism. After graduation, he visited England (meeting Marshall and Edgeworth), and briefly took up a legal position in Cairo. In 1909, he began teaching at the University of Czernowicz, followed in 1911 (until 1918) at the University of Graz. In 1919 he became Finance Minister in the newly created Austrian Republic, he then worked in banking. He returned to academic work in 1924, first in Bonn, and then at Harvard from 1932. He stayed at Harvard until his death in 1950.