Towards an Austro-German Theory of Uneven Economic Development? A Plea for Theorizing by Inclusion

Abstract

From Meir Kohn’s distinction between research programmes based on “value” and ‘exchange’ (2004), this paper sugests a ‘production’ paradigm fundamented on the tradition of Menger and Schumpeter. It is suggested that this production-based programme could use as its starting point Schumpeter’s (1908) attempt to mediate in the Methodenstreit by arguing that different types of economic problems require theories at different levels of abstraction. This unfolds into a ‘theorizing by inclusion’, an approach combining key elements both of traditional German economics and of Austrian stream of mengerian tradition.