Heckscher, Eli Filip

Heckscher, Eli Filip (ĕ`lē fĭl`ĭp hĕk`shər), 1879–1952, Swedish economic historian. Influenced by the neoclassical economics of Alfred Marshall, Heckscher advocated the use of monetary policy to combat inflation. His views were adopted by the Bank of Sweden in 1920. His best-known work, Mercantilism (tr. 1935), was the first modern synthesis of mercantile thought and practice. Heckscher saw the mercantile system as embodying the political and economic values of competitive young nation states, and he questioned the validity of mercantile theory. Other works include an outstanding economic history of Sweden (4 vol., 1935–49; tr. of abridged ed. 1954).

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Heckscher, Eli Filip

(born Nov. 24, 1879, Stockholm, Swed.—died Nov. 26, 1952, Stockholm) Swedish economist and economic historian. He taught at the Stockholm School of Economics from 1909 and was a founder and director of the Stockholm Institute for Economic History. He wrote mainly on economic history, producing such works as The Continental System (1922) and Mercantilism (1935). He originated the concept of commodity points, which limit the fluctuation of paper currencies, and argued in favour of free trade, asserting that differing productive factors were responsible for differing commodities trading advantages among nations. This hypothesis, expanded on by his student Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979), is now known as the Heckscher-Ohlin theory.

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Heckscher, Eli Filip 

Born Nov. 24, 1879, in Stockholm; died there, Dec. 23, 1952. Swedish historian and economist.

From 1909 to 1944, Heckscher was a professor of political economy and economic history at the Stockholm School of Economics, and from 1929 to 1949 he directed the Institute of Economic History in Stockholm. Heckscher’s works represented the first steps toward the systematic study of the economic history of Sweden and constituted an important stage in the development of Swedish historiography. Hekscher’s study Mercantilism was translated into a number of European languages and provoked much discussion among economic historians in many countries during the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s.

WORKS

Merkantilismen, vols. 1–2. Stockholm, 1931.
Sveriges ekonomiska historia från Gustav Vasa, vols. 1–2. Stockholm, 1935–49.
Industrialismen, 4th ed. Stockholm [1948].

REFERENCE

Kan, A. S. “E. F. Kheksher kak istorik.” In Skandinavskii sbornik, vol. 4. Tallinn, 1959.