Profile Major Works Resources

Friedrich Benedict Wilhelm von Hermann, 1795-1868

Bavarian teacher, Cameralist economist, statistician and proto-marginalist.

Born in Dinkelsbühl (Bavarian Franconia),  Friedrich Benedict Wilhelm von Hermann studied at the Universities of Erlangen and Würzburg. He became a mathematics teacher at private school in Erlangen in 1817, transferring to its high school in 1821.  In 1823, he took a secondary appointment as a lecturer in Cameralist economics at the University of  Würzburg, submitting a thesis on the ancient Roman economy. In 1825, Hermann was appointed professor of mathematics at a newly-founded Polytechnic School of Nuremberg, producing a popular  mathematics textbook. Two years later, in 1827, Hermann became an associate professor of Kameralwissenschaft (political economy) at the University of Munich.

Hermann's principal claim to fame is his 1832 economics textbook, Staatswirtschaftliche Untersuchungen. Here, Hermann introduced perhaps the earliest statement of economic theory wholly in demand-and-supply form.  He is thus regarded as one of the leading proto-marginalists in Germany.   Purportedly, Hermann was highly influential upon Carl Menger.

Hermann's 1832 treatise enabled his promotion to ordinary professorship at Munich in 1833.  From 1836 he was employed by the Bavarian government as an inspector of technical schools and, from 1839, a member of the Bavarian statistical bureau.   Hermann was appointed consultant to the Bavarian ministry of the interior from 1845.

Politically liberal, Hermann represented Munich at the Frankfurt Assembly in 1848. He was a founding member of the "Greater Germany" Party (Grossdeutsche Partei), which promoted inclusion of Austria in a unitary German nation-state, as a counter-balance to Prussia. Nominated councilor of state in 1855,  Herman left politics and focused almost entirely on his work for the statistical bureau.  He finished revisions for a second edition of his economics text just weeks before his death in November 1868.

 

  

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Major Works of F.B.W. Hermann

  • Dissertatio exhibens sententias Romanorum ad oeconomiam politicam pertinentes, 1823
  • Ueber Anlage und Fleiß, 1825 [bk]
  • Lehrbuch der Arithmetik und Algebra zum Gebrauch in Schulen und beim Selbstunterrichte, 1826 [bk]
  • Über polytechnische Institute, 1826-28, v.1, v.2
  • Ueber Zucht und Erziehung in Schulen, 1827 [bk]
  • Staatswirtschaftliche Untersuchungen, über Vermögen, Wirthschaft, Produktivität der Arbeiten, Kapital, Preis, Gewinn, Einkommen und Verbrauch, 1832. [bk] [2nd. ed., 1870]
  • "Ueber den gegenwärtigen Zustand des Münzwesens in Deutschland und die neueren Vorschläge zur Abstellung seiner Gebrechen", 1834-35, Archiv der politischen Oekonomie und Polizeiwissenschaft, (v.1), Pt. 1 (p.58),  Pt.2 (p.141) [offpr]
  • Ueber Sparanstalten im Allgemeinen, insbesondere über Sparkassen, mit Rücksicht auf die in Bayern bestehenden Anstalten der Art, 1835 [bk]
  • Die Industrieausstellung zu Paris im Jahre 1839, 1840 [bk]
  • Die Reichsverfassung und die Grundrechte, 1849 [bk]
  • Ueber die Bewegung der Bevölkerung im Königreiche Bayern, 1853 [bk]
  • Ueber die Gliederung der Bevölkerung des Königreichs Bayern, 1855 [bk]
  • Anstalten für Wissenschaft, Kunst, Unterricht und Erziehung im Königreiche Bayern, 1866 [bk]
  • Die Ernten im Königreiche Bayern und in einigen andern Ländern: eine statistische Studie, 1866 [bk]
  • Mortalität und Vitalität im Königreiche Bayern, 1867 [bk]

 
HET

 
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Resources on Friedrich von Hermann

  • "Ueber den Gebrauchswerth und die Wirthschaft nach den Begriffsbestimmungen Hermann's" by Albert Schaeffle, 1870, ZGS, p.122
  • "Hermann und Helferich, Erinnerungen aus dem Jahren 1861 und 1864" by G.F. Knapp, 1897, Grundherrschaft und Rittergut, p.131.
  • "Hermann, F.B.W." in C. Coquelin and G.U. Guillaumin, editors, 1852, Dictionnaire de l'économie politique [1894 ed.]
  • "Hermann, F.B.W." in L.B. Say and J. Chailley-Bert, editors, Nouveau Dictionnaire de l'économie politique [1900 ed.]
  • "Hermann, F.B.W."  in R.H. Inglis Palgrave, editor, 1894-1901 Dictionary of Political Economy [1901 ed.]
  • "Hermann, F.B.W." in J. Conrad et al, editors, 1900, Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften
  • "Hermann, F.B.W." in 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • "Hermann, F.B.W" in Deutsche Biographie
  • Wikipedia

 

 
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