HIST363: Global Perspectives on Industrialization

Joseph Alois Schumpeter was born in Třešť (then part of Austria-Hungary, now in the Czech Republic) on February 8, 1883. He was always a brilliant student and praised by his teachers. He began his career studying law at the University of Vienna under the great Austrian theorist, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, taking his Ph.D. in 1906. In 1909, after some study trips, he became a professor of economics and government at the University of Czernowitz (a German-language university in Austria, now in Ukraine), in 1911, at the University of Graz, where he remained until World War I.

In 1919-1920, he served as the Austrian Minister of Finance and, in 1920-1924, as President of the private Biederman Bank which collapsed in 1924, leaving Schumpeter in bankruptcy. From 1925-1932, he held a chair at the University of Bonn, Germany.

In 1932, Schumpeter had to leave central Europe because of the rise of the Nazis and he moved to Harvard University - he had already lectured there in 1927-1928 and 1930 - where he taught from 1932 to 1950. During his time at Harvard, he was joined by Wassily Leontief, John Kenneth Galbraith, and fellow Austrian, Gottfried Haberler. There, he taught Paul Samuelson, James Tobin, Abram Bergson, among others.

Schumpeter's bad luck was that he was the contemporary of John Maynard Keynes, the two being born but a few months apart. Hence, his prestige among colleagues seemed a bit outdated and not in touch with then-fashionable Keynesianism.

Although Schumpeter encouraged a number of young mathematical economists and introduced mathematical economics to Harvard University, not to mention being the founding president of the Econometric Society, Schumpeter was not a mathematician, but rather an economist. He tried instead to integrate sociological understanding into his economic theories.

From 1945 to 1950, he worked on what is probably his most famous work, History of Economic Analysis, which was published posthumously. He died on January 8, 1950.