Lederer, Emil (1882–1939)

Abstract

Emil Lederer was a prominent economist and sociologist in the German Weimar Republic. He was born in the Bohemian town of Pilsen in 1882 and died in political exile in New York City in 1939. In Vienna and Berlin, where he studied both law and economics, Lederer participated in advanced seminars conducted by Menger, Böhm-Bawerk and Schmoller. From 1918 to 1931 he served as professor in Heidelberg and then succeeded Sombart in Berlin from 1931 to 1933. In collaboration with E. Jaffé, Schumpeter and Sombart as well as Max and Alfred Weber, he edited the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, the renowned social science journal which ceased publication under the Nazi regime. After emigrating to New York in 1933 be became the first Dean of the New School for Social Research’s Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, which was comprised of outstanding Continental scholars who had also sought asylum in the United States.