Josef Loschmidt’s Economic Ideas

Abstract

There have always been people who did not stick to their narrow field of academic interest. Josef Loschmidt, trained as a chemist, became well-known in the realm of physics. He also took an interest in economic problems, but — although he had acquired some “managerial” experience — his few notes on these problems were those of a dilettante. They have no systematic character, nevertheless, they follow a red thread, linking them to common ideas and prejudices of his time. The topics his notes deal with were much discussed in the 1880s: the consequences of the cheap American grain exports for European agriculture and society as a whole.