Background
Karl Heinrich Rau was born on November 23, 1792 at Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany.
Karl Heinrich Rau was born on November 23, 1792 at Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany.
He studied from 1808 to 1812 at the university there, where he afterwards remained as a Privatdozent.
His memoir, greatly enlarged, was published in 1816 under the title Uber das Zunftwesen und die Folgen seiner Anfhebung. In the same year appeared his Primae lineae historiae politices. In 1818 he became professor at Erlangen. In 1822 he was called to the chair of political economy at Heidelberg where the rest of his life was spent, in the main, in teaching and research. He took some part, however, in public affairs: in 1837 he was nominated a member of the first chamber of the duchy of Baden, and in 1851 he was one of the commissioners sent to England on the part of the Zollverein to study the Industrial Exhibition. A result of this mission was his account of the agricultural implements exhibited at London (Hie landwirthschaftlichen Gerdthe der Londoner Ausstellung, 1853). He was elected a corresponding member of the French Institute in 1856.
The three volumes of Lehrbuch der politischen Okonomie are respectively occupied withpolitical economy, properly so called, or the theory of wealth, (2) administrative science (Volkswirthschaftspolitik) and (3) finance. The two last he recognizes as admitting of variations in accordance with the special circumstances of different countries, whilst the first is more akin to the exact sciences, and is in many respects capable of being treated, or at least illustrated, mathematically. This threefold division marks his close relation to the older German cameralistic writers, with whose works he was familiarly acquainted. It is a consequence in part of his conformity to their method and his attention to administrative applications that his treatise was found peculiarly adapted for the use of the official class, and long maintained its position as their special text-book.
In 1814 he obtained the prize offered by the Academy of Gottingen for the best treatment of the question how the disadvantages arising from the abolition of trade gilds might be removed.
His principal work is the Lehrbuch der politischen Okonomie (1826 - 37), an encyclopaedia of the economic knowledge of his time, written with a special view to the guidance of practical men.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
(This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 18...)
(This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 18...)
Quotes from others about the person
"He was the economic teacher of the well-governed middle states of Germany from 1815 to 1848". (Roscher)
