Wilhelm Röpke, “Hagen, Karl Heinrich”

Röpke’s signed biographical encyclopedia entry, originally published in 1932 and republished in 1937, locates Karl Heinrich Hagen (1785–1856) within the development of German classical economics. It moves from his training under Hoffmann and professorship in economics and technology at Königsberg to his writings, concentrating on his contribution to foreign-trade theory.

Hagen’s intellectual position joins two traditions: Adam Smith’s teachings and the administrative concerns of older cameralism. Röpke presents Hagen’s 1839 Von der Staatslehre und von der Vorbereitung zum Dienste in der Staatsverwaltung as an attempt to apply classical doctrines to this inherited field of problems. His chief achievement, however, lies in the mathematical analysis of trade developed in his 1844 work:

This work, written under the influence of Cournot's Recherches sur les principes mathématiques de la théorie de richesses (Paris 1838), presents one of the earliest attempts in German economic literature to apply the mathematical method to economic analysis.

The significance is methodological as well as doctrinal. Röpke credits Hagen with pursuing exact analysis and measurement of export and import duties, making mathematical reasoning relevant to national commercial policy. The work’s international reception supports his judgment that it still deserves attention.

The entry closes by distinguishing Hagen’s unconditional endorsement of imports from his conditional assessment of exports. Röpke then states the policy consequences and corrects a reported misinterpretation:

Consequently import duties as well as export bounties are injurious. The opinion, occasionally expressed, that Hagen considered import duties advantageous under certain conditions is erroneous.

This correction sharpens the entry’s historical purpose: to establish Hagen’s place in early mathematical economics while preserving the precise direction of his trade-policy conclusions.