The influence of the German Historical School on economic theory and economic thought in Russia

The German influence on Russian economic thought underwent several stages. As Schumpeter pointed out, in Germany the historical school constitutes the third epoch in the development of German political economy. The first one was the epoch of cameralistics, the second corresponding to the English period of classical political economy that culminates the works of Hermann. Russia&s;s first political economist and statistician is a Baltic German called Heinrich von Storch, who is a European and is the first-rank representative of eclectic political economy. New generations of Russian economists wants to reach the level of European intellectual standards, but they realize the striking difference between Western roots of classical political economy and the Russian background of serfdom. They also realize that European industrialization has a darker side to it, its own controversies and conflicts. The German Historical School stimulates the beginning of Russian comparative economic studies and contributed to discovering structural and institutional peculiarities of Russian agriculture and industry.