Karl William Kapp

Karl William Kapp
Born(1910-10-27)October 27, 1910
Königsberg, East Prussia, Imperial Germany
DiedApril 4, 1976(1976-04-04) (aged 65)
Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia
NationalityGermany
United States
Academic career
FieldEvolutionary economics, institutional economics
School or
tradition		Institutional economics

Karl William Kapp (October 27, 1910 – April 4, 1976) was a German-American economist and professor of economics at the City University of New York and later the University of Basel. Kapp's main contribution was the development of a theory of social costs that captures urgent socio-ecological problems and proposes preventative policies based on the precautionary principle. His theory is in the tradition of various heterodox economic paradigms,[1] such as ecological economics,[2]: 417f  Marxian economics, social economics, and institutional economics. As such, Kapp's theory of social costs was an ongoing debate with neoclassical economics and the rise of neoliberalism.[3] He was an opponent of the compartmentalization of knowledge and championed, instead, the integration and humanization of the social sciences.[4]

  1. ^ Berger, Sebastian (2015). The Heterodox Theory of Social Costs by K. William Kapp. London: Routledge.
  2. ^ Spash, Clive (1999). "The Development of Environmental Thinking in Economics" (PDF). Environmental Values. 8 (4). Cambridge: The White Horse Press: 413–435. doi:10.3197/096327199129341897.
  3. ^ Berger, Sebastian (2017). The Social Costs of Neoliberalism: Essays on the Economics of K. William Kapp. Nottingham: Spokesman.
  4. ^ Kapp (1961), Toward a Science of Man in Society, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.