Upcoming Conferences:
Friday, April 23nd, and Saturday, April 24rd, 2027, Berlin
Friday, May 5th, and Saturday, May 6th, 2028, Zurich
History of the VfS:
The Theoretical Committee within the Verein für Socialpolitik has a long tradition: a theoretical committee already existed within the association during the interwar period, although at that time it was not yet clearly theory-oriented in the modern sense. The discipline of ‘economic theory’ as such did not yet exist either. Nevertheless, there was talk of a ‘theoretical club’, a ‘group’ or the ‘German Ricardians’. However, the work of the Ricardians came to an end for the time being when the Verein für Socialpolitik was dissolved in 1936.
It was not until 1948 that the Verein für Socialpolitik was re-established, and work began to revive the committees. The first meetings of the Theoretical Committee took place in the summer of 1949, with a still small number of participants. From 1953, however, academic meetings featuring lectures and discussions began to be held, which in the early years – including 1953 – mostly took place at Haus Ahlenberg in Dortmund. Thus, the year 1953 is also regarded as the year of the Theoretical Committee’s re-establishment within the Verein für Socialpolitik.
In the first 20 years following its re-establishment, the lively conference programme was also reflected in regular independent publications of conference papers that had been revised following discussion. In the period that followed, the Theoretical Committee and its members played an extremely important role in the process of bringing German economic research closer to and opening it up to the international ‘mainstream’, a process that had an impact far beyond the narrower field of economic theory. In particular, the Committee’s methodological orientation – which continues to shape its work to this day – was of instrumental significance in this regard.
The members of the Committee meet once a year for a two-day Committee conference, which includes a general meeting.
Source: Bertram Schefold, Wissenschaft als Gegengabe - Neugründung und Aktivitäten des Theoretischen Ausschusses im Verein für Socialpolitik 1949 - 1973.