ABSTRACT
German historicism in economics developed a set of theories and concepts to deal with the transformations experienced by German economies and societies predominantly before the industrial revolution. The expression 'Historical School' is a common but highly controversial label for a great number of economists writing in Germany from mid-nineteenth century until the First World War, when the 'School', in the sense of a compact paradigm organised around a common epistemic structure, dissolved. The institutional development of the German economy oriented economic disciplines towards the study of institutions, legal constitutions and business collusion. Knut Borchardt can be considered as the last economic historian of the 'old school' and arguably the most prominent in the post-war period. The 'German Historical School' provided a methodological approach to cope with structural change. To economic historians, the effects of changing economic orders and the political regulation of markets were of greater interest than economic stability and growth.
